THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE

The Nano; it came, it showed and it conquered (though as of now only our heart and not the market). But unlike the antiquity of Alexander, things get forgotten pretty fast nowadays. And the latest buzz is about how the future of the auto industry is moulded in India as the government’s Automotive Mission Plan 2006-2016 (AMP) is just starting to creak its gears (not least with the sops given in the latest budget by the Finance ministry). It cannot be denied that the auto industry for long has been one of the defining threads in any country’s economic fabric. The amount of jobs in the manufacturing sector it creates is phenomenal. On an average an additional car creates 5 additional jobs, while a commercial vehicle 13! But even though India is the 2^nd largest two wheeler, 11^th largest four wheeler and 5^th largest commercial vehicles manufacturer in the world, its employment in this sector, at 12%, lags far behind that of other Asian countries like Malaysia (50%), Korea (62%) and China (31%). The AMP figures it to change and at an increase of 10% in GDP by this sector, hopes to create 25 million additional jobs by 2016.

Phew!!! Pretty boring all these economic (crap) figures, so I am not going to speak much about them. As the industry plans to invest Rs 75000 crores in India, the focus is not on big wigs arriving with their “can-anyone-afford-it” products, instead it is on the more mundane vehicles (like the i10) which contribute to about 70% (uff, again figures) of the sales, and more importantly are exclusively made in India for the world. These exports (and not the gleaming “don’t-drive-on-road” masterpieces) are what will define our presence in the world and take us into the future. But as the industry aims to meet the AMP’s targets (and hopefully supersede them), road blocks are aplenty. There is the depreciating dollar (killing exports), rising taxes and interest rates, and many other factors which any economic guru can tell you in more detail than I will ever be able to master.

But just making them will not solve the problem, infact it just might give birth to a larger one. Again coming back to the revered Nano, the problems I am referring to are what is being feared as the aftermath of the Indian “bug”. Yes I am speaking of traffic jams, pollution, et all. Here is where the role of the manufacturer diminishes and our sanctimonious (pun intended) government comes into play. Firstly, mass transport has to be more organised. We all have seen what an impact the Delhi metro has had on the city, and know pretty well that Mumbai cannot survive without its trademark (though much criticised) ”locals”. Over the last 10 years road availability in Delhi (one of our better cities) has declined from 2.21km per 1000 people to just 1.94km (I just love these figures, don’t I). This despite the numerous road projects undertaken in the mentioned period. The writing then, is there on the wall for all to see. The government just isn’t keeping up with the pace of the auto industry. India has got the 2^nd largest road network in the world, behind only the US, though the US has 11 times the number of vehicles. Even puny Japan has 7 times the vehicles for just a third of our roads. Then there are China and Brazil, who again have more cars and less roads then us. Just goes on to show how important mass transport is.

But this is not even a mole as compared to the mountain of the problem of tail pipe emissions. Yes we’ve got our Bharat stage norms, but they are implemented in a strange city based system. Do people residing in the metros have a right to breathe cleaner air than those in some part of Bihar/Rajasthan? Certainly not, then why two different norms for them? The excuse that there are more vehicles in metros is lame, as nothing restricts a vehicle of one zone entering the other. Then there is the issue of hybrids, bio fuel and fuel cells. Compared to the governments in developed countries who are pouring money by buckets for R&D in these fields, our government has paid a phenomenal..................NOTHING. It’s then up to, either tenacious manufacturers like Mahindra to do it on their own (their hybrid project), or opportunist outsiders like Daimler Chrysler to fund our efforts and patent it as theirs in the bargain (the ambitious Jatropha bio-diesel project). As fuel prices break all barriers, we need to focus on these measures more than anyone else for economic reasons as well (considering lot of our foreign currency goes in importing oil). This freedom for R&D will lead to more novel products like the Nano (not quite completely forgotten isn’t it) and then the results will spiral out faster than ever before. If not that, the least the government can do is help companies (like Toyota who is trying its best to get the hybrid car Prius in India) by mandating subsidy to such products and incite the common man for their use by awareness campaigns.

Tatas have surely put us on the automotive map with a bang, and now we only need to consolidate on that position by spilling our influence on other aspects too. One thing is for certain now, whatever the who’s who abroad may say, we’ve got the talent to do it better than the best, only someone with a weltanschauung like Ratan Tata is required. Yes, certainly things are improving and the government is responding. And while the above measures may only be the tip of the iceberg, one thing is for sure, the auto surge of India cannot be bated. It’s only up to us to steer it in an optimal direction rather than let things go chaotic. As the famous X-Files adage goes “The truth is out there”.