Amidst din of all the new launches, futuristic concepts and madding crowds, Dilip Chenoy, Director General, SIAM (Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers), speaks to Sourya Biswas and brings into perspective the Auto Expo's success, the challenges of organization, and what the future holds for the Indian automotive industry.

Can you give us a bit of background on the Auto Expo, and how it all began?
Twenty-two years ago, when there were just about 12 to 12 companies in the automobile sector and a few hundred companies in the components sector, there was a need to position…and to make the general public and others aware, of the capabilities of the automobile industry…and to also generate an interest, and to demonstrate what is the production capability in India, what the automotive industry contributes to the economy.

Therefore we started the very, very small Auto Expo…in two halls. In fact, at that point of time, it was actually a challenge to even fill those halls. And the second one was done after a considerable gap…and it's only after the third Auto Expo that we had a two-year regular interval between successive Auto Expos. So, in many ways, even though this is the ninth Auto Expo it spans over 22 years, and the actual, regular, Auto Expo has been a very recent and new phenomenon.

How has participation improved this time over the previous edition?
This Auto Expo, everything has nearly doubled…we have doubled in terms of space, from 60,000 square metres to 120,000 square metres…we have doubled in terms of number of vehicle manufacturers…we have nearly doubled in terms of number of component suppliers, we have gone from 1,050 odd companies to over 22,000 companies…and, most importantly, for the first time, we have had three global product launches at the Auto Expo.

I am not talking about any new versions of existing cars or any new facelifts…if you look at the total number of launches, it has exceeded 25 and the visitors have really doubled and Pragati Maidan is bursting at the seams.

How do you think an exposition like this helps the industry?
The Auto Expo is a platform for various stakeholders. If you take the automobile industry, it is a platform for them to announce, collectively, the efforts that they are making to meet consumer needs and demands…second, to demonstrate their capabilities in technology…and third, to also showcase some of what they plan to do in the future. For the auto component manufacturers, it is an opportunity to showcase technology, attract potential buyers from overseas, look at sourcing people from India.

And both the automobile and automotive sectors have the ability to draw a large number of local consumers and the public at large, who will understand what they are doing and be a part of the development of the industry going forward.

The second is also to address the government in India, because the government plays a pretty strong role still in the automotive sector, and the idea is to provide a platform for interaction, for sharing of information, sharing of knowledge. Display is not the only aspect of the Auto Expo…we have seminars, conferences, buyer-seller meets, IPO that is International Purchasing Office…and it's a wide variety of stakeholder interactions.

What kind of problems did you face during the organisation, and what do you think is the kind of administrative support that will help you during the next edition?
The number one challenge we faced this year was space crunch, so we got into a dialogue with the ITPO and we have found additional space in many innovative number of ways.

If you see, the lake (as the pond at Pragati Maidan is referred to) has been covered… General Motors and Mahindra have their pavilions on the lake… the challenge was to get the fountains running, but they were not too sure about the quality of wiring that already existed in the lake, and whether the structures would be able to take any surge in current. So there's no water in the lake but we hope, going forward, we will be able to address the wiring problem and have water in the lake.

The second is that, we have covered a whole lot of vacant spaces that were traditionally not used during the Auto Expo. For some stalls we have got very good quality imported hangars, the others we had to use local hangars…so what we are looking for is some support from the supporting industries to provide us global quality exhibition facilities in open spaces.

The third challenge is the challenge of parking, and this year it is very complicated because we have double the number of exhibitors…so, in a sense, the number of cars that the exhibitors will use have doubled…and we have a lot of construction work going on in the traditional areas of parking around National Stadium, around Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium, or in other parts in and around Pragati Maidan…which are being readied for the Commonwealth Games.

So we not only have a space constraint, we have a parking constraint, and because this event traditionally coincides with the Republic Day parade, a lot of parking spaces that were available during the India International Trade Fair are not available to us. So we have an issue there.

We hope that the facilities in Pragati Maidan will soon be modernised…there are a number of state pavilions that we could not use this time for various variety of reasons, but we hope, going forward, there will be less need to construct hangars and outside structures…and other infrastructure issues will be addressed inside Pragati Maidan.

What do you think is the future of the auto industry in India? Are pollution concerns being adequately addressed?
Let me take the two questions separately. First, as to the future of the automotive industry…if I were to say very clearly, there is an Automotive Mission Plan 2006-2016, which has been released by the prime minister last year…and the vision of the automotive industry in that plan is that from the current level of about $35 billion, that is, Rs1, 62,000,00,00,000 (rupees one lakh, sixty-two thousand crores), we would, by 2016, reach a turnover of $145 billion.

That means that the current turnover will be multiplied by five times, and from the current 5 per cent of GDP, we will contribute to 10 per cent of GDP…and the employment would go up three times, and exports should go up nine times. That's the kind of vision that they have for the automotive industry…it is envisioned to make India the destination of choice for design and manufacture of automotive components and vehicles in the world.

The second thing is the issue of environment. I think the automotive industry is extremely conscious and behaves in a very responsible manner with respect to environmental issues in India. In fact, in 2002, the automotive industry came up with its independent roadmap, where we had suggested that we advance emission norms and get the Euro IV by 2007.

However, in the dialogue with the fuel industry and government, it was decided to get the new norms in by 2010. We are also advocating that there should be a single norm across the country and not two norms as now, and we hope that going forward, once the fuel availability issues are addressed, we will have a single norm.

The third thing that the automotive industry is doing is that many times there is a perception that India is behind the norms internationally, or vehicles made in India are not as clean as vehicles made overseas…and therefore, we are doing two things here. First, is that we are interacting with the UNWP29 system, where international driving cycles and emission limits are being set, so that we can adopt them.

And the second is, through Auto Expo and through pavilions like the alternate fuel pavilion and the diesel pavilion, we are trying to communicate to the common man what are the efforts that the automotive industry is taking to address the twin issues of energy and emission, and also, what in reality are the facts of the technology development in India and energy usage.