Gudi Padwa festivity was in top gear on Tuesday, with car dealers across the State registering an upswing in sales, some crossing over 200 cars. That’s not all, happy days are expected to continue with a cut in road tax effective from April 1, as announced in Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar’s Budget speech recntly.
PANAJI
The festival being a preferred day for the buyers to take delivery of their vehicles it brought cheer among the auto dealers who saw the sales of cars look north. Few dealers also mentioned that the upswing in sales on this occasion is a sign of a positive cyclical change and that they expect this growth momentum to continue for a while now.
Tejasavi Pai, vice-president, Chowgule Industries (dealers of Maruti Suzuki), said, “Gudi Padwa has really helped giving a boost to car sales. We have delivered 200 plus cars today across all our dealerships. Otherwise, we don’t deliver more than 20 cars in a day.”
Pai’s view was substantiated by Prashant Joshi, president of Goa Automobile Dealers Association (GADA), as he said, “The sentiment has clearly improved for car sales on Gudi Padwa, as a number of people take physical delivery of cars on this festival.”
Typically, customers start postponing their car purchase weeks before Gudi Padwa so that they take the delivery of car on this very auspicious day.
Parind Nachinolkar, managing director, Group Priority (dealers of Renault and Skoda), said, “We are seeing a positive sentiment in car market on the occasion of Gudi Padwa after four years. Our sales are 20% up in March 2017 compared to the same period a year ago. Besides, chief minister Manohar Parrikar had announced reduction in road-tax in his budget. That has also given a fillip to the market.”
He continued, “Reduction in road-tax will be applicable from April 1. However, some people are booking cars on the festive occasion so that they can take delivery next month, when they can benefit from lower road tax.”
In the last few years, car sales had struggled to grow in Goa for one reason or another. First, it was ban on mining and then it was general economic slowdown in India. The problems were compounded last year when the then chief minister, Laxmikant Parsekar, sharply increased the road tax.
In the latest budget, Parrikar has reduced the road-tax for certain categories of automobiles by 5%. Along with the positive sentiment on account of Gudi Padwa, reduction in road-tax is also expected to help increase car sales in Goa.
