Rajiv Bajaj, managing director of Bajaj Auto, said India's struggling automobile industry will be worse off because of the migration to the BSVI eco-friendly fuels, adding that he has little hope from the Budget in February.

"If the real issues are addressed, only then can we see some chance. Addressing peripheral issues has never solved any problem,” he said on the sidelines of the launch of the electric version of the Chetak scooters in Mumbai on Tuesday.

Though it was politically incorrect to say so, Bajaj said he was not thrilled about the BSVI emission norms, adding that the move was stalling the already stuttering auto industry.

The auto industry was forced to invest in the upgrade from BSIV (BS4) to BSVI (BS6) and thus prices have seen an uptick.

“The price of owning a two-wheeler for a common man has increased by 30 percent in 1.5 years. That is a hard problem. Does the government have the humility to reflect and roll back some of this? Can they absorb some of the hit by BSVI?” argued Bajaj, who is one of the few outspoken corporate bosses in India.

In 2016, India decided to migrate to the BS-VI level from April 2020, leapfrogging over BS-V fuel norms to beat pollution. Vehicular emissions are known to contribute towards the high particulate matter in the air and aggravate health risk.

India's automobile industry has been battered by a crushing economic slowdown, a severe credit squeeze, higher insurance costs and a shift towards ride-hailing services such as Ola and Uber.

Bajaj said he has an alternate solution to controlling pollution, which he believes would be more effective than the emission norm jump. “It will be politically incorrect to say that BSVI is not the right thing to do, but frankly, I'm going to say it. Getting rid of old vehicles in a suitable mechanism would have been more effective than squeezing out the last little bit of emission from BSIV vehicles,” he said.

Not Excited About Budget 2020

When asked about his expectations of the upcoming union budget, which will be presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 01, Bajaj didn’t seem too hopeful.

“I don't think there is anything that the budget can do which can solve the industry’s problems. The budget was not the reason due to which the sales have been heading down,” he said.

It’s been more than one and a half years since the slowdown in sales hit the auto industry. Bajaj feels that over-regulation is the main culprit.

“The single most important reason for the current slide is over-regulation by the government. We are budget agnostic. The over-regulation that is killing the industry,” Bajaj lamented.

First Published:Jan 14, 2020 2:30 PM IST