Union Minister for heavy industries and public enterprises, Prakash Javadekar today convened a meeting with a group of select CEOs of the Indian Automobile Industry, to understand the possible impact of COVID-19 on the Indian Automobile sector and listen to suggestions from the Industry on possible policy interventions to minimise the impact.

The meeting, held through video conferencing saw suggestions ranging from reviving the sector, ensuring livelihood and mobilization of resources. Union Minister said that not only did the demands were put forth but also very concrete suggestions also came up during the course of discussions.

Very good suggestions like batch testing for workers before joining the work again, online registration, then sanitization of selling points, physical separator between two workers were given during the meeting, said Prakash Javadekar.

The Industry highlighted key issues with some suggestions related to Re-opening of the entire Automotive Industry Value Chain ; Support for Dealerships ; Employment support interventions ; Boosting Demand and with respect to the requirement for Financial support.

The Union Minister assured the industry captains that we’ll discuss all these suggestions and demands with respective Ministries like Transport Ministry, Commerce Ministry, Finance Ministry and other Ministries concerned.

The industry barons appreciated Prime Minister’s leadership in dealing with COVID. “India really did very well in managing COVID and we have saved precious lives, now we have to concentrate on livelihood”, stressed the Heavy industries minister.

Arjun Meghwal, Minister of State for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises and also Mr ArunGoel, Secretary – Heavy Industries also participated in these deliberations.

The meeting had representation from both the OEMs and also the Auto Component sector. Rajan Wadhera, President, SIAM and also Deepak Jain, President, ACMA co-led this Industry team. The other senior CEOs who participated included R C Bhargava ; Pawan Munjal ; Vikram Kirloskar and Dr Pawan Goenka.