The automobile industry is seeking an extension on selling and registering the remaining BS-IV vehicles in the country amid the coronavirus pandemic. The industry body plans to approach the Supreme Court on this issue, reports Economic Times.
You may be aware that the government has mandated that vehicles conforming to the BS-IV emission standards will not be permitted to be sold or registered with effect from April 1, 2020. All vehicles have to adhere to the BS-VI emission standards. India decided to skip one level and jump to BS-VI from BS-IV.
Now the automobile industry has been fully aware of this deadline for a long time and most of them had stopped making the cars and motorcycles and scooters in the old standard and switched to the new one. However, many dealers around the country are sitting over stocks of BS-IV vehicles and with just a fortnight to go for the deadline to end, they don’t see how they can liquidate the stocks.
The misery of the dealers has been confounded by several states sending out circulars to their regional transport offices (RTOs) not to go ahead with the registrations of BS-IV vehicles in mid-February itself. Similarly, many banks are understood to have declined loans to their customers if the vehicle to be purchased was of BS-IV.
The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) and the Federation of Automotive Dealers (FADA) are the bodies now mulling knocking the doors of the apex court for some relief. They would want the deadline to be extended till the COVID-19 crisis goes away. Their argument is that there has already been a slowdown in the economy and ever since the outbreak of Coronavirus, footfalls at the dealer points are showing a decline. There is this general panic feeling among the public. Considering all these the dealers must be permitted to sell the vehicles for a little longer.
The associations may first hold some discussions among their own members before filing the petition.