Scrap old vehicles to ensure clean air continues, says Vinod Dasari

While the nationwide lockdown has pretty much brought economic activity to a standstill, Vinod Dasari, CEO of Royal Enfield, believes that some “good things” have emerged in the process.

“We now have cleaner air and rivers. Maybe this is a good time for the Centre to say that pollution should be kept down and all vehicles that are more than 10 years old should be permanently locked down,” he told BusinessLine in a telephone interview.

According to Dasari, this would be one way of stimulating demand for people to buy new vehicles. Ideally, those that are over 10 years old should not be registered but scrapped.

“Where there is a will, there is a way. Scrap them and get a certificate which will help anyone get a discount on a brand new BS-VI vehicle,” he added. From Dasari’s point of view, the clean air drive could even go beyond vehicles to every other polluting source.

For instance, industries which were fouling up water with alarming regularity should also be compelled to go in for professional lockdowns. “With cleaner air evident now, the Centre should push the envelope aggressively…the easy step is to get rid of 10-year-old plus vehicles first,” he said.

Lockdown impact

The Royal Enfield CEO agreed with the commonly-held view that the world would not be the same again post-Covid. “There will be changes for sure. Travel will come down and meetings can be done online,” he said.

Yet, he maintained that it was important not to get into “excessive analysis” of what the future would be like. The key for the Royal Enfield team, in his view, was to remain physically and mentally sharper while being continuously engaged in work.

“If we keep ourselves motivated, we will emerge ahead of others irrespective of how the situation pans out. Sooner or later, we will have to come out and face the reality of economic progress,” said Dasari.

As he put it, the world “cannot be in a perpetual lockdown” and the good thing was that Indians are entrepreneurial and perseverant. “I believe the market will bounce back stronger than ever with everyone happy to do business,” said Dasari.

He was confident that people would come back to buying motorcycles (and other products) all over again. With enough pent up demand set to be unleashed, companies would have to think of a “whole lot of ways” to engage with customers.

At the factory level, likewise, there will be more safeguards in place to ensure that employees do not get too close to each other. “Where there is one conveyor, we will perhaps go in for two so that there is social distancing on the shop floor,” said Dasari. Likewise, other regulations could be stringently followed when it came to operating canteens and the like which typically draw big crowds.

Even while Covid-19 has spawned a “fear psychosis” across the world, he was reasonably sure that it was only a matter of time before it goes away. “You will still want to see your friend, colleagues and celebrate with high fives in a cricket match…the world will eventually recover,” said Dasari.

Ownership of cars

There is a school of thought that personal ownership of cars and two-wheelers will surge once Covid-19 blows over since customers will be extra wary of taking shared rides in an Uber or Ola. According to the Royal Enfield chief, this is wishful thinking, at least for the moment.

“People may even wonder why they need to spend more money and there could just be different dynamics playing out by the end of the day,” he said. Likewise, there was no telling if the Centre would also do its bit in making public transport more efficient and safer.

“In life, you should think about those things that you can control and try to fix…yet also have the courage to accept those that you cannot… and this (Covid-19) is one of those things that you cannot control,” said Dasari. The best bet, therefore, was to use it as an opportunity “to do what we feel is the right thing for our company”.

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