Most Indian morningers and online news reported today about zero sales in Automobile sector in the month of April. It is strange that people are in shock over this news. This news was not at all surprising and was very much expected considering the whole of India was in lockdown in the month of April. And car/automobile is not an essential commodity to be delivered online over Amazon.
But the big question in everyone’s mind is what lies next for automobile and economy. It is heartening to hear the news that lockdown restrictions in rural areas have been relaxed for districts which have not seen new patients in last 28 days. The news that infra projects related to highways and other projects are also picking up is heartening. The railways are pushing for critical infra related changes for which, otherwise, they may have to wait for some power blocks. Corporations are busy working on completing road and drainage related works wherever possible, jus tbefore monsoon sets in.
The movement of people too has been relaxed for green zones with industries allowed to work maintaiing social distancing norms. All this helps. These economy push in rural areas will help generate income for people and revenues for the governments. This will increase the dependency on rural areas along with more economic empowerment, giving them more chances to increase revenues.
Hence, when the economic activities in red zone urban areas are muted, rural areas are creating more avenues to earn more money. The automobile or rather any industry will find light here at the end of lockdown tunnel. Also once urban lockdown ends, people will find ways to travel while maintaining social distancing. So, there will be many who will shun car pool, shun suburban locals like in case of Mumbai and use own car and buy one if they dont have.
These demands are in addition to people who were planning to buy new ones in March-April. To add to this, there will be companies which will try to shun their manufacturing activities in China and start new ones in India. This will create new jobs and push further demand in every industry.
Basically, what you see here is local/global demand will increase as soon as the effect of COVID-19 starts fading away. COVID-19 has put a pause on the current activities. But there are many countries which have come out of this pandemic crisis, and India will also win. And like always, in these conditions, humans will fight this pandemic, learn from the mistakes and start a new beginning…
So till things are in place, have patience, things will be fine and even better.
We will be back with more positive news, stay tuned 🙂
