Tata Motors Says Auto Slowdown Due To Credit Issues, BS-VI Transition

The country's automobile industry will gather pace by July-August this year, a top official at Tata Motors Ltd. said, attributing the current temporary slowdown to issues like consumers facing problems in securing vehicle loan and the companies shifting to Bharat Stage-VI emission norms as mandated by the government.

"The sluggishness of the vehicle market in the country is going to be short-lived. We hope that sales of passenger vehicles will record pace by July-August before the festive season," Tata Motors president (passenger vehicles business unit), Mayank Pareek, told reporters after launching the company's new car Altroz in Madhya Pradesh.

He hoped that the vehicle market would grow due to the continuous expansion of infrastructure in the country and the increasing population of young professionals.

Pareek said that about 74 percent of customers in the country buy cars by taking loans from banks.

But for the last 12 to 18 months, customers are facing difficulties in getting vehicle loans from banks.

Besides, he said that due to the emission standard change from BS-IV to BS-VI, there has been a slight slowdown in the entire motor vehicle industry as all the vehicle manufacturers are currently finishing their old stock of BS-IV class vehicles.

Sharing details of Tata Motors' position in this regard, Pareek said, "We have exhausted stock of BS-IV class vehicles in our factories in the first nine months (April-December) of the ongoing financial year".

The company hopes that by Feb. 1, the stock of vehicles in this category will be reduced to less than 5,000 units with Tata's dealers.

"It is to be noted that as per the Supreme Court's decision to reduce environmental pollution, Bharat Stage (BS)-VI emission standards are going to be implemented from April 1 and new vehicles will be sold in the country as per this standard only."

With this, the registration of BS-IV category vehicles will be stopped.