Auto industry's lobby bodies approaches SC seeking extension of sale, registration of BS-IV vehicles till May end

MUMBAI: Two separate petitions from automobile industry lobby bodies landed at the Supreme Court on in the past two days as stakeholders sought to minimise their losses on unsold inventory with the deadline for sale and registration of BS-IV emission norms compliant vehicles just a fortnight away.

A vehicle retailers’ body on Tuesday filed a petition with the apex court seeking a relaxation in the deadline itself. The Federation of Automobile Dealers’ Associations (FADA) argued that the footfall at dealerships has dwindled due to the Covid-19 pandemic, making it difficult for dealers to sell all their existing stock of vehicles compliant with the outgoing norm.

“When a big disruption like the coronavirus outbreak happens, customers immediately put big ticket purchases on hold,” Ashish Kale, the president of FADA told ET.


“Even customers who had made bookings are not concluding their purchase,” he said. In some regions, partial lockdowns notifications from local authorities have forced many retailers to shut shop, he said.

Vehicle retailers that ET spoke with said that two-wheeler dealers are particularly at the risk of having unsold inventory even after the deadline.

The inventory of BS-IV compliant units with two-wheeler retailers at the beginning of this month averaged between 20 and 25 days, according to an earlier note from FADA. The inventory level with passenger vehicle retailers averaged between 10 and 12 days while that with commercial vehicle dealers was between 10 and 15 days.

A petition filed by the dealers’ body a month ago seeking a similar extension of deadline had been rejected by the court.

Meanwhile, the Society of Indian Automotive Manufacturers (SIAM), a lobby of vehicle makers, filed a petition with the country’s top court on Monday requesting it to ask regional transport offices (RTOs) to register BS-IV norms compliant vehicles at least till the 31 March cut-off date.

Several states issued circulars suggesting a cut-off date much prior to the Supreme Court mandated deadline for the registration of BS-IV vehicles, SIAM president Rajan Wadhera said in a statement.

“These circulars have put the customers, dealers and vehicle manufacturers in severe discomfort, as each of them are racing against time to exhaust the BS-IV stocks which are with the dealers,” the statement read.