Voices of optimism emerge as the country heads into the festive season. Several firms have started to rollback the sharp salary cuts that were handed out in the early months of the pandemic.

Reliance Industries has restored the salaries of more than three and a half lakh employees, retrospectively from April 1 2020. The company is also offering an advance 30 percent of the variable pay from next year's salary as a goodwill gesture for working during the pandemic.

IT sector bellwether TCS has said it will give a salary hike ranging from 4 to 12 percent to all its employees, while Infosys has said it will rollout salary hikes and promotions and will also give 100 percent variable pay.

From the financial sector Axis Bank has offered salary increases up to 12 percent for more than 75,000 of its employees. There is hope in the air, at least for a large part of the formal economy.

In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Martin Schwenk, MD & CEO of Mercedes Benz India, and Manohar Bhat, Head of Sales & Marketing at Kia Motors, said they are seeing good demand traction and are hoping that the momentum will continue through Diwali.

However, Vinkesh Gulati President of FADA said that two-wheeler sales are still seeing challenges and are not witnessing a rebound.

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