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Bajaj Auto- one of the country’s celebrated two-wheelers manufacturers, is facing a protest from its sub-dealers in Punjab. Reportedly, there are more or less 40 dealers and over 200 sub-dealers in Punjab and out of these a number of sub-dealers have gone on strike from April 18 and no business transactions took place there. The considerable reason behind this protest is they are demanding for compensation for the outstanding BS-III stock at their inventory owing to Supreme court ban on the retail of such vehicles from April 1,2017.
As per an idea from Industry sources, these countable sub-dealers, who are on strike are having a stack of 1000 unsold BS-III units in their inventory and claiming compensation in consideration of that mentioned amount from the bike maker.
However, Mr. Eric Vas, Bajaj Auto President has completely refused to fact that anyone of their dealers are on strike, by quoted saying in a text message,"All our dealers are working and open. But there could be some sub-dealers who may have some problems with the dealers,". But he did not answer when asked about the unsold number of vehicles and other related details.
The notable thing is the Pune-based automaker had claimed in February that it was manufacturing only BS-IV models from late January. And, Its managing director Rajiv Bajaj had also woken up auto industry early February for asking more time to bring into effect the new emission norms.
Read Also: What is BS III? And Why Supreme Court Banned Non-BS-IV Compliant Two-Wheelers in India?
Sub-dealers say they are loaded with almost 1,000 unsold units of BS-III units and the company is not ready to accept demands and giving any compensation. They also claimed many are afraid to go public on the matter fearing backlash from the company.
These sub-dealers and some of the dealers were not doing business for the past three days from April 18 in protest against the company's approach to their issues.
On April 5, Bajaj notified dealers that it would bring back all the unsold units from them but was tight lippped on those with the sub-dealers.
Following the March 29 ban of sale and registration of BS-III vehicles from April 1, Bajaj too joined its fellow manufacturers in offering heavy discounts in the range of Rs 3,500-13,000 to dealers to help them dispatch of the banned vehicles.
According to an affidavit filed in the Supreme Court on March 20, Bajaj had claimed it had BS-IV certification for its top-selling Pulsar 150 model since December 9, 2016, but accepted that it had produced over 5,100 units of the same model in BS-III variant even in February to provide aids to its suppliers from booking heavy losses.
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