‘We’re looking for a partner who will bring in tech muscle’

Our goal is to become one of the leading players in the commercial vehicle (CV) industry in the country. We are very well placed and are on the verge of hitting the big league and the CV industry is ripe for a change. We can go all the distance alone, but that will take longer. Keeping in mind the larger picture, a partner can bring in its muscle of technology and further strengthen our position. This sort of partnership could also be in a particular area like heavy trucks. We are still working on it and the nature of it has not been decided yet.

• What do you have to say about the recent spat of tie-ups in the industry?

The precedents of people entering the market is not good. Most of the Indo-Japanese tie-ups have not had great success and companies like Isuzu have not been able to break into the big league. Eicher is the only company that in 20 years has been able to make some sort of a dent but it has not been easy and has taken a lot of time. The reason for this is that unlike bikes and cars, this is not a consumer but a customer product. Even with these tie- ups, the market will not change overnight and there will not be a revolution. Initially, people will lose a hell of a lot of money.

• Our industry is old but we are still very backward and a lot of this is due to price constraints. Do you expect this to change in the future?

Yes we are still quite backward in technology, infrastructure, driver condition and someone needs to go out and change the scenario. Traditionally, Indian players have kept the price barrier extremely low and that has served them very well by insulating them from global competitors. Price has been the biggest weapon and its more relevant in heavy trucks. I believe, no single player can ring in all the required changes and a lot of this will be driven by norms like emissions, crash safety tests, minimum power to weight ratio etc. We have done well on emissions and government has chosen to be a few years behind global norms but we have been very slow on crash tests. Whatever is the norms we will adapt to the technology.

• There is a lot of serious thinking going on in the policy circles on mandatory crash tests and it may be a reality in the next decade. Is the industry really up for it now?

Crash tests have been a contentious issue and there are a lot of lobbies working for and against them. There has been very little focus on driver safety and that has slowed down the process. Similarly, enforcement of the ban on overloading also needs to be implemented strongly. But like in the case of other norms the industry will accept crash tests as well.

• The interest rates have slowed down the growth, but you have outperformed everybody. Is there a panacea that you have discovered to tackle that or the rates are not that big a spoilsport after all?

Interest rates definitely have had an impact and it has slowed us down as well. Though we have grown by 19 per cent, we have missed our target so far and would have grown faster.

• What about capacity expansion plans?

We don’t spend till we really need to, and outlook for this fiscal is that we will spend Rs 80-100 crore. We still buy a lot of components and hence most of our investments would be in that sphere. We should reach a production level of over 4,000 units this year.