Hamara Bajaj rides into its sunset

The company,which came into existence in 1945 as Bachraj Trading Corporation Private Limited,said it will exit the scooter market because it doesn’t see much sense in it.

“The scooters did not sell according to our expectations. We are making hardly 1,000 scooters a month. If we have to be a motorcycle specialist,we have to make a sacrifice,” Bajaj Auto managing director Rajiv Bajaj told reporters in New Delhi at the launch of its 135-cc Pulsar.

Incidentally,Rajiv’s father Rahul Bajaj,a leading figure in India Inc who continues to be chairman of Bajaj Auto,was the force behind the company becoming a giant in the scooter world.

Bajaj’s first scooter model ‘Chetak’ was launched in 1972 and remained its flagship model right until the 80s. Then came ‘Super’ and ‘M-50’. Before that it used to sell Vespa 150 under licence from Piaggio of Italy. There was a time when Chetak commanded premium in the market and after booking,people used to wait for months to get the scooter as Premier and Ambassador cars were out of reach of the common people.

Bajaj scooters became so popular that it managed to produce and sell one lakh vehicles in a single financial year in 1977. And after the Hamara Bajaj campaign,it sold even one million scooters by 1995.

The two-wheeler market witnessed a major shift in consumer choice with the popularity of motorcycles beginning to rise and interest in scooters waning. New companies like Hero Honda,TVS and foreign companies like Yamaha entered the scene as the economy boomed and the younger generation preferred motorcycles with new technology and designs. The disappearance of the licence raj speeded up the process.

The company stopped producing Chetaks,Super and M-50 years ago. It is now selling just one scooter,the 100-cc gearless Crystal — that also just 250 vehicles in November. “One day,God willing,we will be the largest motorcycle company in the world,” said Bajaj.

Bajaj has a production capacity of three million motorcycles annually in the 30-million global bikes market. Hero Honda,which started by selling cycles,emerged as the largest two-wheeler maker in the country early this decade through a tie-up with Honda of Japan.