Showing posts with label CNG. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CNG. Show all posts

Monday, April 01, 2013

Stop Missing The Woods Already!

The Indian Automotive Market has seen a very Internecine Battle for Small Cars, but Unfortunately, Precious little has been done to Encourage Green Technologies in Cars. B&E wonders when The Hybrid Revolution will actually take off.

“Save the environment. We owe it to our future generations.” Even amidst all the greenwashing that the world gets exposed to nowadays, a statement like this would never fail to grab your attention. But the first world often alleges that in developing economies like India and China, environment often gets substituted by economy. And if they trace the first world path to economic growth, the earth is really headed to its doom.

A recent study by Yale suggested that India’s CO2 emissions grew by almost 8.7% to reach 1.6 billion tons, thereby making India the world’s third largest emitter of CO2 after China and US. While economic development can hardly be compromised, can’t India develop more responsibly than the West did and manage the two seemingly contrarian objectives. While leapfrogging is a buzzword for us in so many different ways, shouldn’t it also figure in our entire approach towards the environment?

The Indian automotive industry is a case in (counter) point, which produced 1.62 million vehicles in April 2011; a growth of around 23% yoy. The small car battle has led to massive competition but unfortunately, in a country where economy (again!) makes more sense than environment, the evolution of green cars hasn’t really taken off. The diversification, albeit visible, is much more towards CNG and LPG powered vehicles. Renewable sources are still being dreamt of as future technologies. More current is a blame game from all corners and a deplorable lack of accountability.

That is why the ‘Bijlees’ are few and far between. We’re neither talking about India’s entertainment baron, nor are we referring to ‘electricity’ per se. Actually, ‘Bijlee’ was an electrically powered three wheeler developed by Mahindra Mahindra (M&M) in strategic collaboration with Jayem Automobiles in 2003. Despite India’s unique position from where it can consolidate itself as a leading promoter of green technology in an era of global power shifts, all that the project could convincingly generate was a subsidy of Rs.8 lakh on electric component excise duty. Unfortunately, the taxes remain intact with high cost of lithum ion batteries and imported technology, which kept it away from the consumer. The green story saw another initiative when Chetan Kumar Maini, the man behind Reva, India’s only electric car to date, came into the limelight in 2007. But electric cars haven’t been fortunate enough to be mass sellers in India.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist). For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles
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Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Rakesh Rewari

As the number of MSMEs grows at a Brisk Pace, SIDBI’s mission of Providing Timely and Adequate Financing only gets more Daunting. Rakesh Rewari, Deputy MD, SIDBI, discusses The Bank’s plans with Mona Mehta

Rakesh Rewari, Deputy Managing Director, SIDBI, who possesses 38 years of experience in commercial & development banking with leading financial institutions and banks in India, covering a wide range of activities relating to MSME (MIcro, Small and Medium Enterprises) financing, venture financing, technology financing, entrepreneurship, micro credit & incubation funds, is a busy man these days. In a tête-à-tête with B&E’s Mona Mehta, Rewari reveals how SIDBI is grappling with the challenges faced by MSMEs in India.

B&E: How are you handling the tight liquidity scenario post RBI’s credit policy announcement? Specifically, how are you supporting MSMEs?
Rakesh Rewari (RR): SIDBI has provided timely financial support to the MSME sector during the global financial crisis and economic slowdown to overcome their liquidity problem. During FY 2009-10, SIDBI provided additional support to MSMEs, such as need-based restructuring of debt, coverage of loans up to Rs.10 million under credit guarantee, providing customised risk capital to MSMEs and setting up an e-platform called NSE Trade Receivables Engine for E-discounting (NTREES) for discounting of MSMEs receivables on real time basis. Further, the bank accorded greater thrust to sustainable development of the MSME sector by way of, inter alia, promoting energy efficiency, clean production credit lines, Green Rating, et al.

B&E: But are you also addressing the issue of inefficient energy use in the MSME space?
RR: To improve productivity and competitiveness of MSMEs through energy efficiency (EE) measures in their production process, the bank upscaled its EE financing by contracting bilateral Lines of Credit (LoC) from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufbau (KfW) and French Development Agency (AFD). Some of the notable EE initiatives of SIDBI include providing collateral free credit to Mumbai taxi owners to replace their existing petrol taxis with CNG fitted taxis, special refinancing to Delhi Financial Corporation for assisting more than 600 LPG fitted auto rickshaws at Chandigarh, financial support to Bhartiya Micro Credit to provide 500 rickshaws to disadvantaged persons in and around Lucknow and financial assistance to Friends of Women’s World Banking for providing 50,000 solar lanterns to micro entrepreneurs in Manipur and other states of North Eastern Region.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles

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Monday, November 26, 2012

N. K. Minda, MD, NK Minda Group

B&E: What kind of opportunities exist for the Indian component industry in foreign markets?
NKM: Indian auto component industry is today emerging as one to be reckoned with. With more and more global auto majors setting up manufacturing facilities in India, the Indian auto component sector is getting exposed to internationally accepted manufacturing practices. However, concerns about quality still remain. Also, we are still lacking in original research & development activities. But slowly I am sure that these issues will get resolved and India’s potential of emerging as the global auto hub will also be realised.

B&E: What effects has the rupee appreciation had on the company?
NKM: The Indian rupee has been depreciating in the recent past rather than appreciating. We typically have clauses in our export import orders wherein foreign currency fluctuation beyond a certain limit are factored in. Our exports are largely to Europe and are Euro denominated, so we have been relatively insulated from dollar fluctuations.

B&E: In terms of profitability, market share or turnover, what are the plans?
NKM: The NK Minda group has crossed the Rs.10 billion turnover mark and our next aim is to triple this turnover to Rs.30 billion crores in the next 3-4 years. In terms of profitability we are in challenging times and the aim is to increase our net margins to 10%, so that we can justify the faith of our stakeholders. Today we have roughly 70% market share in off road switches, 50% share in four wheeler switches, 40% market share in horns, 70% market share in CNG/LPG kits, 15% market share in automotive lighting. Besides this we are into EOVM (Electronic over view mirrors) and automotive batteries where we have just entered. The plan is to have domestic leadership in all product categories where we are not the leaders in the next couple of years.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

For More IIPM Info, Visit below mentioned IIPM articles.
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