The Indian automotive industry is stuck with over 8.24 lakh BS-III inventories as of March 20, including commercial vehicles, two-wheelers, three-wheelers, and passenger vehicles, after the Supreme Court’s decision to ban the sale and registration of the same, from April 1.
With over 6,00,000 inventories, the two-wheeler segment seems to be the most affected. The commercial vehicle segment too has piled up the inventory, and the manufacturers will have no other option than to offer higher discounts in order to liquidate the stock. Over the next two days, the dealers will be in a race against time to sell their inventory.
“On and from April 1, 2017, such vehicles that are not BS-IV compliant shall not be sold in India by any manufacturer or dealer, that is to say that such vehicles, whether two-wheeler, three- wheeler, four-wheeler or commercial vehicles will not be sold,” a Bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and Deepak Gupta ordered.
“All the vehicle registering authorities under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, are prohibited from registering such vehicles on and from April 1, 2017, that do not meet BS-IV emission standards, except on proof that such a vehicle has already been sold on or before March 31, 2017,” the court directed.
Furthermore, the court has asked the manufacturers why didn’t they take pro-active steps despite knowing way back in 2010 that BS-IV norms would be effective by April 2017. The auto industry on the other hand blames the fuel companies for the poor availability of BS-IV fuel across the country.
SIAM president Vinod Dasari feels that the court’s decision is unfortunate, because the BS-IV fuel should have been made properly available first.
The court points out that the oil refineries had spent about Rs 30,000 crore since 2010 to produce “cleaner” fuel.
Apart from the green lobbies, the push for the ban on BS-III was reportedly spearheaded by a section of the industry itself, including Bharat Benz and Bajaj Auto.
Recommended for you
Leave a Reply
Note: Comments that are unrelated to the post above get automatically filtered into the trash bin.
