Auto dealers count on healthy festive sales; job recovery seen

Faced with a consumption slowdown along with the high cost of finance, the country`s automobile dealers expect a partial turnaround during the upcoming festive season which will also lead to job regeneration. The sector has witnessed around 2 lakh job losses due to the sales slowdown.

At present, the sector suffers from a sales downturn due to several factors like high GST rates, farm distress, stagnant wages and liquidity constraints. Besides, inventory pile-up and stock management of unsold BS-IV vehicles have become a problem for the sector.

"We are seeing some recovery in the jobs that were lost," Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA) President Ashish Harsharaj Kale told IANS.

"We hope the festive season will be better in terms of sales and this will have a positive effect on job recovery."

Additionally, the industry body expects the latest government measures to kick-in and reverse the ongoing slowdown.

To help revive the sector, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has announced several steps.

These includes allowing government departments to buy new vehicles, automobiles purchased till March 31, 2020 to avail the benefit of additional depreciation of 15 per cent, with total depreciation up to 30 per cent, and BS-IV vehicles bought till March 31, 2020 would remain operational for their entire registration period.

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On Sunday, almost all major automobile makers in the country reported a huge decline in domestic sales across segments like passenger, commercial and two and three-wheeler vehicles.