Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), the apex automobile industry body, is veering around to the view that the government is unlikely to heed its demand of uniform excise duty for all vehicles.
Which is perhaps why SIAM has made a slight alteration in its demand: uniform 8% excise duty on all vehicles but a provision for further “incentivisation” of small cars and multi utility vehicles (MUVs).
At present, cars longer than 4 metres and with engine displacements of over 1200cc (petrol) or 1500cc (diesel) are charged 20% flat excise duty plus Rs 15,000 additional levy. SIAM has been asking for all vehicles to be brought down to the lowest 8% excise slab.
In a chat with DNA, the newly elected SIAM president Pawan Goenka said, “Till now, we had been saying don’t penalise any segment and incentivise MUVs and small cars…now, we are saying bring down excise on all vehicles to 8% and then provide further incentives for small cars and MUVs. We understand that the government cannot bring down duties from 20% to 8% in one go, so this could be a step by step process.”
Goenka said that despite the recent downturn in the domestic market, SIAM has stuck to the overall growth targets of the Auto Mission Plan (AMP) for 2016. So, the Indian automobile industry is still poised to treble turnover to $145 billion and double its employment generation capacity in the next seven years.
Speaking of a long-term vision for the industry, Goenka said that it wasn’t enough to position India merely as a low cost manufacturing base - there had to be a better platform than the mere availability of low-cost labour to sell Indian automobile manufacturing to the world.
On alternate fuel and energy roadmap, he said that two different programmes were being pursued by SIAM. The National Hybrid Propulsion Programme aims to bring together leading original equipment manufacturers, members of the academia and research professionals for indigenous development of hybrid vehicles.
The second programme revolves around hydrogen as fuel and under this the development of hydrogen-CNG mixture for operating various kinds of vehicles is already in an advanced stage of implementation.
The creation of pure hydrogen engines and hydrogen fuel cells though is some years away.
Goenka also made it clear that SIAM is looking for an early roadmap for Bharat Stage V norms despite the fact that the BS IV norms are still seven months away.
On vehicle safety, he said that the timeline for making Anti Lock Braking system mandatory for all vehicles remains 2012 but it should become mandatory for most CVs by the next year.
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