At a time when automobile sales are plummeting to alarming levels, it does not seem to be a major economic concern for Chief Economic Adviser Krishnamurthy Subramanian.

He was speaking to mediapersons after an interactive session on how to achieve $5 trillion economy in next five years at the Indian School of Business (ISB) here on Friday.

When asked if the crisis in automobile industry could impact Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in the near future and thereby placing $5 trillion economy dream in jeopardy, he said: ``It is just one part of economy’’ and overall manufacturing sector `is doing well.’’

Automobile industry is, however, a key contributor to manufacturing sector growth and thus plays a key role in pushing up GDP. It may be noted that automobile manufacturers had hinted at job cuts in the last couple of days due to slackening of four wheeler and two wheeler demand for the first time after 2009.

``There is steel and others which are doing well. There is no need to be pessimistic,’’ Subramanian said.

In his talk earlier, the Chief Economic Advisor advised states to follow the Rajasthan model in labour reforms for better results in industry/manufacturing growth.

"I think there are four-five labour reforms what Rajasthan did. And what we are saying is that by doing the labour reforms, Rajasthan was able to increase number of firms of above 100 employees. It has increased the output of the factories and also number of workers and factories as well,"

In 2014, Rajasthan was the first state that introduced labour reforms in the major Acts. Thereafter, many states followed.

The major reforms undertaken by Rajasthan included the amendments to the Industrial Dispute Act, 1947, the Factories Act, 1948, the Contract Labour (Regulation & Abolition) Act, 1970 and the Apprentices Act, 1961.

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