Lucknow, Sep 11 (KNN) Refuting the claims that auto sector is witnessing slowdown because of increased use of Ola and Uber kind of taxi services, a city based MSME entrepreneur cum former President of Indian Industries Association has said the claims are not based on data. Be it auto or garment or any other sector including the MSMEs, none of them are doing well at this time.

Talking to KNN India, Manish Goyal, Former President of IIA said, ‘’Be it auto sector, garment sector or any other sector, none of these sectors are in good position these days. People are earning less and because of inflation the purchasing power of customers have gone down massively,” he said adding that this the main cause for slowdown in GDP.

‘’Earlier, there were foreign investments too and due to Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) factories were being set up here but at present these things seems to have vanished. If we look at the real state, except cement, the other business in real estate are too facing the crisis,’’ he asserted.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had on Tuesday stated that the mindsets of millennials were adversely affecting the automobile industry as they prefer to use radio taxi services instead of buying own vehicles.

"The automobile and components industry has been affected by BS6 and the mindsets of millennial, who now prefer to have Ola and Uber rather than committing to buying an automobile," said Sitharaman while addressing reporters.

Reacting to this, Goel said this statement should have been given on the basis of data.

“There should have been proper data about how many people are using Ola and Uber, and how many Ola and Uber cars were plying on road carrying people and at present what is the number of that cars on road and to what extent people are using their services to reach their destination,’’ questioned Goel.

‘’I don't think that the government is in a situation to give any kind of relief to the auto sector. The government has landed themselves in a difficult situations,’’ he said when being asked that in coming days will the government be able to come up with any measures to give relief to the auto sector. 

'The people who were using metro, auto and other public vehicles to commute, they might have now opted to OLA or Uber.  I guess that merely 1 or 2% commuters are using OLA, Uber, but 32% of the commuters are using the same is quite unbelievable," he added. (KNN Bureau)

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