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NEW DELHI, Oct 19: India’s privatization minister Arun Shourie said on Saturday the entire programme of selling off state firms which are largely loss-making was thrown into uncertainty due to growing opposition.
“Nothing can be done at all if at every step objections are raised and motives questioned. As far as I am concerned, there are no targets and nothing can be met if things continue this way,” Shourie told reporters.
“In India the tragedy is that these necessary reforms can be done only in short sprints of 25 metres each, whereas China is moving ahead like a juggernaut.”
Due to stiff trade union and political opposition, the government has only managed to raise 50 billion rupees from privatization in the current year against a targeted 120 billion rupees.
Shourie warned that blue chip state aluminum firm National Aluminium Company (NALCO) could fall a victim of the anti-privatization drive and become loss-making in coming years.
“NALCO would be in the same position as the Steel Authority of India Limited (which had to be bailed out financially by the government) in five years if the same conditions persist,” Shourie said.
“Around one-and-a-half months of the three-month review period sought for the strategic sale in oil majors BPCL and HPCL have passed,” Shourie said.
“However, no one has come forward with any suggestions or queries to my ministry on the issue and all I can say is that the issue is in the hands of the prime minister and the deputy prime minister,” he said.
BANGALORE: Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp on Saturday launched sales of its imported Camry sedan in India, aiming to capture 20 to 25 per cent of a small but growing luxury sedan market.
Company officials told a news conference in Bangalore they expected to sell about 1,000 units of the model in the first year after paying import and sundry duties of about 120 percent.
Our target for annual sales is 1,000, and that means a market share of 20 to 25 per cent, said Sachio Yamazaki, Managing Director of Toyota’s Indian joint venture, Toyota Kirloskar Motor Ltd, in which Japan’s largest automaker holds 99 per cent.
The launch of the 2,400cc engine Camry model comes ahead of the introduction of its 1,800cc Corolla sedan scheduled for the first quarter of 2003.
Priced at around 1.8 million rupees ($37,190), Camry’s two variants will mainly compete with Ford’s Mondeo model and Honda’s Accord in the segment of cars priced at 1.5 million rupees and above, company officials said.
Toyota officials did not give longer term growth projections but said 350 to 400 cars were sold in the segment in September, up from 250 in the same month a year ago.
Toyota launched in India in January 2000 with its multi-purpose utility vehicle, Qualis, which has sold more than 69,000 units.
Qualis has a 28 per cent share of the 120,000-strong annual Indian market for utility vehicles.
The Indian unit said last month it had begun posting monthly profits since June, and aimed to erase all accummulated losses by 2005/06.
Toyota says it has so far put more than $190 million in its 50,000-units a year Indian plant on the outskirts of the southern city of Bangalore and is also investing 3.6 billion rupees in two export-oriented auto part units, which are scheduled to go on stream in 2004.
But company officials said given the lower sales volume for a model like Camry, it makes more sense to import and sell it in India.—AFP/Reuters
