After the Supreme Court banning registration of vehicles based on Bharat Stage-III (BS-III) norms from April 1, city auto retailers didn’t hesitate to take discount route to clear stock of two and four wheelers. And it worked wonders with bike lovers just pouring into showrooms to get the benefit of hefty discounts.
After the Supreme Court verdict on Wednesday, city auto retailers came up with around 25 per cent discount on two wheelers and around 10 percent on four wheelers on Thursday, which led to many of them running out of stock for two wheelers on BS-III norms.
“We offered up to 15-25 percent discount on Hero scooty and bike ranges, and have seen our stock dried out by the evening. Now, we will sell only vehicles which are compliant to BS-IV norms,” said Automobikes MD Mayank Jain on Thursday. Situation at Premsons Honda, selling bikes and scooty ranges of Honda Motors were also not different, with selecting bikes of their choice on heavy discounts and getting it booked.
“We are having complete BS-IV compliant passenger cars now, and there is no issue at all. But for scooty and bike ranges, we were having considerable number in our stocks. However, we are hopeful of getting it cleared on Friday,” said Premsons Motors Chief General manager (CGM) Rajiv Sinha, who entertains being premier Maruti-Suzuki dealers in eastern region with Maruti and Nexa showrooms, apart from having dealership of Honda bikes in the city.
Banning sales and registration of vehicles based on BS-III norms which has left automobile industry with some 12,000 crores of rupees on value terms on stake, has appeared to be a boon for those acquiring a bike in near future. “Though you can say that people should be more aware towards their environment and climate, a customer will remain a customer and he will always try to find good deal. So, those coming to book a BS-III compliant vehicle today and tomorrow are not wrong, as the Supreme Court has allowed them to do so,” said a sales representative at Toplink Toyota on Thursday, requesting not to reveal his name.
However, car dealers were not as lucky enough in terms of number of bookings of just a few models still following BS-III norms.
“As banks are closed on today, car dealers have found it difficult to get documents processed for those who want to acquire a vehicle on EMI. There are no buyers of car in cash after demonetization on November 9 last year, car dealers have definitely got themselves in a mess,” said Rajiv Sinha.
