How far have we come from the economic liberalisation? ( Note to mods: please forgive me if a similar thread exists. I tried finding for similar threads, but couldn't find one)
Yesterday, I was going through my Economics textbook and found a chapter titled 'Globalisation and the Indian Economy'. It was about the process of globalisation and liberalisation, its positive and negative effects. While going through the chapter I kept wondering-'How has the economic liberalisation affected the Indian Automotive Market?' Though I can elaborate on it, I felt that it is the older BHPians who would know more about it than me as they have experienced these changes. Now let us see how liberalisation happened and how it has affected the Indian Automotive Scene.
It was in 1991, that some far reaching changes were made to the Economic Policy of India. The Indian government had till then placed various trade barriers and restrictions. They had done so to protect the Indian manufacturers from foreign competition. However, it felt then that time had come for Indian manufacturers to compete worldwide. As a result, it removed several trade barriers and restrictions on investment. This marked the beginning of the New Economic Policy in India.
Now, let us look at how it has changed the automotive world. - Due to liberalisation, we now have a wider choice available in front of us to choose from. We now have various car brands like Toyota, Skoda, Honda, Mercedes, BMW and many more which provide us with a lot of attractive options unlike the olden days, where we only had Indian brands like the Hindustan Motors and Tata!
- Some Indian car manufacturers have made successful collaborations with companies from abroad. The most famous one is that of Maruti Suzuki.
- Indian Companies have been trying their level best to improve the quality of their products and also increase their productivity. These companies have invested in developing their technology and means of production. This has only been beneficial for them. For example, if people compare the Tata Hexa with the indigo, they would find a hell lot of differences. Some of them might even wonder if the Indigo was really a car manufactured by Tata!
Now let's look at the other side of the story: - Though Indian companies have tried to improve the quality of their products, they are still far behind the foreign manufacturers when it comes to numbers. The reason is how much ever they try to improve , they enjoy very little success in this regard. Maruti is the only Indian brand which enjoys a good amount of trust from the citizens. If you have two sedans, one offered by Tata and the other by Toyota, 9 out of 10 people are bound to lean towards sedan offered by Toyota and not the Tata. If you ask them why, they would come with a variety of complaints against Tata like reliability issues, poor fitments etc.
- Another thing is that though we've a lot of options before us, there is a lack of a real choice available in front of us. Though we would be offered two cars from two different manufacturers, there is a really good chance of both of them being somewhat similar when it comes to features, i.e, they offer similar features with minimal differences.
I know this post is too small for a thread starter. But, these are all just my viewpoints. More than me, it is you fellow BHPians who are more experienced and know a lot more about the above topic than me. That's why I thought of starting a thread in which people can discuss this topic and even bring back their good old days. They can also share some amazing facts in this regard. Please add on your posts to help me expand my knowledge and also correct my mistakes if any. |