More than 70,000 two-wheeler units have been left unsold with auto dealerships, caught in the limbo between BS-IV and BS-VI transition. As dealers rushed to sell off their units before the March 31 deadline last year, issues related to vehicle registration prevented vehicles that were already sold from operating on the roads. Now, these vehicles sit unused in the dealerships after customers return the vehicles that they cannot drive. According to Vinkesh Gulati President at Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA), dealerships in three States, in particular, Chhattisgarh, Tamil Nadu and Delhi NCR region are still struggling to get rid of their now obsolete BS-IV stock.

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Take the case of East Delhi based Shiva Motors, the dealership is sitting on a stock of 25 bikes which were sold by March 28 last year, however, left unregistered, customers are unable to drive them, which is why 16 units were returned to the dealership and sit unused gathering dust. “By 28th of March, sales for these units were complete, and we had paid road tax on these vehicles on the E-Vahan website, yet for some reason, the vehicle remains unregistered,” the Shiva Motors proprietor told BusinessLine.

A major cause of this confusion is the last ten days before the BS-IV transition to BS-VI was to be implemented, were caught in the lockdown due to the first wave of the Covid19 pandemic, which caused auto dealers to scramble to finish off sales and get their sales registered on the E-Vahan website. Acknowledging the difficulties of auto dealers, the Supreme Court passed an order on August 18 last year which allowed for an extension to get vehicles registered after the March 31, 2020 deadline, should the sales have been made before the deadline, provided the sales had been uploaded onto the E-Vahan portal. Delhi NCR was an exception to this extension, however, due to the high rates of pollution in the city, which is why vehicles needed to be sold and registered before the March 31, 2020 deadline. In the Shiva Motors case, by filing the road tax, Shiva Motors had commenced the process of getting the vehicle registered, but the registry would only be complete once the Road Transport Office approved the case which did not happen before the deadline. Gulati told BusinessLine that FADA is trying to appeal on behalf of NCR dealerships which were in the process of registration, i.e. customer details were uploaded onto the Vahan website before the deadline, to see if their vehicles can be registered after all.

Two other States, Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh are also facing issues around unsold BS-IV two-wheeler inventory. In the case of Tamil Nadu, it did not comply with the Supreme Court directive to allow BS-IV vehicles to get registered in April, May and June should the sale be done and uploaded on Vahan before the deadline. In the case of Chhattisgarh, according to Gulati, the Vahan website was locked on March 28 and 29, therefore even if dealerships completed sales before the March deadline, they were unable to upload the details of their customers online amidst the confusion.

For now, dealerships with unsold inventory are in a difficult situation, OEMs have also refused to buy back BS-IV stocks and the dealerships are looking at losses ranging from ₹8-9 lakh to ₹1 crore as stocks remain unsold. “OEMs should take back these vehicles, to repurpose them since they are of no use to the dealer now,” said Gulati, “such a huge amount of loss should not be placed on the dealer” he continued.

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