Monday, July 07, 2014
By Jitendra Singh
Auto industry has huge hopes from Union Budget
With the Union budget for 2014-15 round the corner, the Indian auto industry is ready with its wish-list, hoping for a favourable treatment from the new government. The industry has been reeling under a prolonged demand slump and high interest rates for the past few years, and has seen sales growth falling to its lowest levels in past decade. Although some car companies have reported a pick-up in sales during the first quarter, performance of other segments such as commercial vehicles has not been encouraging enough.
Among the immediate demands the industry wants the government to address include resolution of the inverted duty structure on components, withdrawl of the 1 per cent national calamity and contigent duty, higher depreciation rates on cars, and hiking the customs duty on CV import close to the WTO bound rate of 40 per cent.
Besides, the industry also wants a road map that looks at long-term issues such as future emission norms, legal provisions for preventing of overloading, an incentive-based CV fleet modernisation programme, FTAs with countries which are potential markets, faster purchase of buses by state governments and better roads.
Read complete story at Economic Times.
