If the auto industry is to drive the economy and the manufacturing sector, penetration must rise, and millions of automobiles must be produced each year, according to RC Bhargava, Chairman of Maruti Suzuki India.
RC Bhargava, Chairman of Maruti Suzuki India, stated on Wednesday that while government officials have made numerous remarks in support of the automobile business, nothing has been done in practice.
The veteran industry leader noted that the country’s automobile sector was at a critical juncture, with declining fortunes in recent years and that it would not revive either with conventional engine vehicles, biofuels, CNG, or electric vehicles unless the question of car affordability for the customer was addressed.
“We have been going through a situation where this industry has been declining over a long period of time. And despite various very important people in government, we just heard Mr Amitabh Kant (Niti Aayog CEO)… There have been a lot of statements made about the importance of the automobile industry. But in terms of concrete actions, which would reverse the decline in trend, I haven’t seen any action on the ground,” Bhargava said.
“I am afraid words don’t get us very much in the terms of extra sales but you need concrete action to make this happen,” Bhargava noted.
He wondered if this kind of attitude toward the sector stems from the traditional assumption that the automobile industry and passenger automobiles were luxury items reserved for the wealthy.
“Because if the mindsets have changed, I think people planners, economists, thinkers, writers, journalists, everybody should have been worried long ago about what was happening to the growth of the automobile industry …,” he said.
The numbers are available for all to see, yet no steps have been done to correct the situation.
“I am sorry to say that there are very few steps taken that could reverse this trend. And that is what worries me,” he noted.
According to Bhargava, the Indian automobile industry became a model sector and began to flourish once Maruti was founded.
“The change in policy to set up a public sector company to make cars was not because there was a change of thinking amongst the planners that we need a car industry to grow our economy to grow manufacturing, like what happened in the United States or in the UK, or Germany or France or Italy, or Japan or Korea or even China, that kind of thing did not happen,” he noted.
Bhargava pointed out that the auto sector has grown so much because the people of this country have a strong desire to own a car, rather than because of any purposeful policy.
“And which again, I think supports my view that the change in the mindset of planners about the importance of the car industry and generally of the automobile industry, remains confined to words and doesn’t get translated into action.
“The situation today is that if we take into account what has happened in the last 18 months of Covid, already, the industry actually is on a decline if you look at the last five years, and how to reverse this,” he said.
Bhargava stated that he believes Indian customers should have access to safe and clean autos.
“To get those clean vehicles, if we follow all the European standards with the costs which are involved in those times, how do we make it affordable with a much lower income level which exists,” he questioned.
