Two-wheelers not luxury, tax cut needed to spur demand: HMSI

New Delhi: Two-wheelers are a necessity and not luxury in the current Indian context and taxes on these vehicles must be reduced as the industry is staring at a single-digit growth next fiscal with affordability becoming an issue, according to a senior executive of Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India.

There is also a requirement for income tax rationalisation to enable middle-income people start spending again, Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI) Director Sales and Marketing Yogesh Mathur told media in an interview. In the ongoing fiscal, motorcycle sales have not done as well as the scooter segment due to softness in demand from rural market, due to a variety of factors including delayed monsoons, he added. “From the rationalisation of GST (point of view), we have been requesting the government to really take care of (it) because two-wheelers are actually not a luxury. It is a necessity for our people to commute,” Mathur said when asked about demands from the industry for a cut in taxes on two-wheelers.

He pointed out that currently, the last-mile connectivity is not there yet in India and even the public transport is also not adequate and sufficient to take care of the growing population, especially the “urban areas which are choked right now”. “We understand that two-wheeler still holds a necessity value, rather than the luxury...So from that perspective, in the personal mobility space, even two-wheeler becomes a necessity, and that necessity should not be taxed at 28 per cent, that’s what our request from the industry body is there to the government,” he added.