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SIAM framing vehicle retirement policy

Our Bureau

NEW DELHI, Sept. 6.

AS part of its efforts to revive demand in the automobile industry, the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) is framing a retirement policy for vehicles, newly elected President, Mr R. Seshasayee said today.

The policy, the key objective listed by SIAM as its agenda for the next one year, would be spelt out for consideration of the Government in six weeks, he said at a press conference here.

Mr Seshasayee said SIAM is working on the vehicle retirement policy after the Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises entrusted it with the job.

``The broad scope of the scheme would include phased retiring of vehicles used for hire and reward,'' he said. Such a policy would also go toward cleaning up the environment, Mr Seshasayee said.

``If we retire 15-year-old vehicles in the top five cities, then our emission level comes down by 60 per cent,'' he said.

But Mr Seshasayee blamed the cost increase of vehicles as a result of having to upgrade technology to meet new emission norms as one of the reasons for the current slowdown.

``The problem areas for the industry are the commercial vehicles and three-wheeler segments. The efforts that we will be undertaking in the next one year will be to revive demand. The measures adopted would include the phased retirement of vehicles,'' Mr Seshasayee said.

The woes of the automobile industry and the demands would be raised at a meeting with Finance Minister, Mr Yashwant Sinha, here tomorrow.

Mr Seshasayee said that SIAM is in favour of the tariff reduction policy of the Government as part of being a signatory to the World Trade Organisation, but it should address the concerns of the domestic manufacturing sector also.

``SIAM supports the Government in bringing down the overall tariff levels. But this must be accompanied by the creation of a favourable environment for manufacturing sector as well. Otherwise, tariff reduction will only result in trading. It also highlig hts the need for having a clearly spelt out automobile policy,'' he said.

Mr Seshasayee also said that the automobile industry needs to be foretold about the implications of the dismantling of the administered pricing mechanism.

SIAM, at its third annual conference held here on Wednesday, also elected Mr Jagdish Khattar, Managing Director of Maruti Udyog Ltd, as the Vice-President for the next one year.