In a major decision, Supreme Court of India has banned the sale of BS3 compliant vehicles from 1st April 2017!
The governing body has multiple times announced and told manufacturers, well in advance about the deadline but it was observed, through the data submitted by SIAM, that instead of dropping production, some manufacturers continued and in fact increased the production of BS3 vehicles.
Supreme Court reasoned that public health is more important than pending inventories. It has barred manufacture, sale and registration of BS3 vehicles completely from April 1, 2017! This is a major setback to the manufacturers who have massive pending stock in dealerships.
According to ET Auto, there are 6.71 Lakh unsold two-wheelers and it appears that Hero MotoCorp is (one of) the biggest culprit here. They reportedly have more than 3.28 Lakh BS3 two-wheelers in their inventory. After this decision, Hero’s shares declined by 3 percent.
Bajaj, which has been very vocal about their timely transition to BS4 (for both motorcycles and three-wheelers) had filed a plea in the Supreme Court requesting for stoppage of sales of BS3 vehicles from 1st April.
It is clearly a case of intentional negligence but we still believe sale of these vehicles should be allowed but by imposing a major fine on the manufacturers so that when we move to BS6 (we are skipping BS 5), they know that deadlines (specially for such important issues) are meant to be adhered to.
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What this also means is that you can enjoy never heard before discounts on all BS3 motorcycles and scooters till 31st March 2017. But ensure they get registered within this date! Many manufacturers and dealers have announced special schemes for clearance.
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