Ludhiana bicycle associations identify five turnaround areas to touch $ 5 bn industry mark by 2030

Ludhiana, Apr 3 (KNN) With the aim to help the bicycle industry reach USD 5.21 billion mark by 2030, the All-India Cycle Manufacturers’ Association (AICMA) and United Cycle Parts Manufacturers’ Association (UCPMA) have jointly identified five turnaround areas.

The turnaround areas include empowering MSMEs; to migrate from voluntary to mandatory minimum standards of bicycles and their parts; to upgrade company-level technology through production-linked investment scheme support as a viability gap funding; to create world-class testing and certification and to build safe cycling infrastructure in 8,000 cities/towns.

“These areas will boost the industry at global level by 2030,” said UCPMA president DS Chawla.

AICMA president U Rajagopal pointed out that there are social, environmental and economic benefits of bicycles. The two associations passed a resolution for creating a world-class bicycle manufacturing ecosystem in India.

As per a 2019 report of The Energy and Resource Institute (TERI), it is estimated that rather than using other transports, Rs 1.8 trillion (i.e. 1.6 per cent of India’s GDP) can be saved annually by using bicycles for short-distance trips.

The industry, since Independence, has a total of 4,000 micro, medium and large units with 10 lakh jobs. It is the second largest in terms of production with around 20 million bicycles per annum.  (KNN Bureau)