The auto sector contributed to over 7.1% of GDP, and represents much of manufacturing in the country.In this aspect alone the industry has every right to demand favors from government.
For long the sector has been looked into as one catering to rich in the country – even this article may have been believed to be serving Car manufacturers. But that is not the case. We are talking about both two wheeler and commercial vehicles (Read trucks) – may be more of them.
While two wheeler represent daily need of a common man, the commercial vehicle are vital infrastructure resource for virtually every other sector of economy.
Yet an attempt is being made to put the entire quagmire of fall in vehicle sales as a blip in overall scheme of things. This despite the fact that the sector employs over 3.2 Crore people (32 Million users) and may impact more than 10 crore (100 Million) dependents government is finding silly excuses.
For one march of Ola and Uber has been blamed for falling car sales, in spite of fact that the two cab hailing services have little to offer beyound top 6-7 cities in country. The demand has slowed in hinterland too.
Then there is the case of Hero Motor Corp’s falling sales evenly matched by Bajaj, TVS and Honda. While we may all choose to look away, the fact of matter is that government is charging close to 40% of end cost to consumer and commercial users as GST , Road Tax and Registration costs. Unlike other aspects of economy, even Goods transportation agencies cannot avail input tax credit on the GST paid by them.
While it can be argued weather or not this is a good thing for environment, country’s energy bills etc, the present crisis is on its way to destroy Indian manufacturing as we know it.
With a diminished ‘Make in India ‘India’s march to 5 trillion USD economy , it seems, is more dependent on hopes of US dollar crashing than enterprise of Indians.
