Auto Industry Not A ‘Chai Stall’ That You Can Open And Shut Overnight, Says Rajiv Bajaj

The government’s schemes and subsidies for electric vehicles are more than enough to generate interest but the switch to electric vehicles has to be phased out properly, Rajiv Bajaj said in an interview to CNBC TV18.

“When you are making 25 million two-wheelers and three-wheelers, it is not a switch that you can switch on or off overnight,” the managing director of Bajaj Auto Ltd. said when asked about the members of the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers working on a transition to electric vehicles for the automobile industry. “This (auto industry) is not a chai ka stall (tea stall) that you can open and shut overnight.”

The Narendra Modi-led government announced various measures to promote EVs, including waiving registration charges and deduction of interest on loans taken to purchase such vehicles.

While Bajaj was appreciative of the government subsidies for electric vehicles announced in the Union Budget, he was “completely, 110 percent opposed” to a draft notification that mandated most two-wheelers and all three-wheelers to become electric by banning internal combustion engine for scooters, motorcycles, and three-wheeler. “I do not believe that these two things should be coupled in this manner that in order to encourage or promote one thing you have to artificially bury another thing which is world-class.”

Bajaj said a conducive time for electric vehicles to come into the market would be just before the India’s Bharat Stage-VI emission standard norms come into effect in April 2020. “People will be very sensitive to the subject of environment and green at that time,” he said, adding that current vehicles will get much more expensive with technology that enable them to comply with BS-VI norms.