By giving much needed relief to the Indian automobile industry that is facing a struggling time in sales from the last two years, the Indian government has decided to extend the interim excise duty concessions for car automobile makers by the next six months i.e. until December 2014.
This excise duty was announced in the interim budget in February which was going to expire soon on upcoming 30th June. It was expected that prices of vehicles will go high for sure after expiring it but now government has given a huge relief in same manner.
If we see the records of last two years than major segments like cars, buses, trucks etc have gone through drastic sales except the two-wheelers segment which has recorded a growth due to increment in demand of scooters in India.
“This has come at the right time and I believe the auto industry will have a sufficient time to recover. We are hopeful for a positive festive season that now would be boosted by the excise concession as well as new launches that would create right environment for the industry to grow,” said Rakesh Srivastava, senior vice president for marketing and sales at Hyundai Motor India.
At the beginning of this year, in February, when government had announced the 2014 interim budget, then rates of excise duty on vehicles was slashed as per the models. The small cars faced reduction in excise duty from 12% to 8%, medium sized from 24% to 20%, large-cars from 27% to 24%, SUVs from 30% to 24% and two-wheelers from 12% to 8%.
