• 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.

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