BS-IV bikes trickle in as price hike affects sales

Two-wheeler manufacturers have priced BS-IV vehicles up by 10 to 25 per cent over their BS-III versions, which were banned from April 1, leading to a drop in sales. Few showrooms had two-wheelers complying with BS-IV norms, and supply is picking up.

A dealer said customers were stepping back due to the higher prices and the increased cost of insurance. “A motorcycle with BS-III standards cost `61,500 on road but the BS-IV version costs `67,000 with hiked insurance charges,” he said.

AP and Telangana Automobile Dealers’ Association president Y. Rama Koteswara Rao said all two-wheeler showrooms in the two states had procured BSIV vehicles.

“Stock is available with every dealer now. We are expecting normalcy in sales after 15 days. The gap has been already filled with the huge sales in two (days before the deadline ran out on BS-III vehicles),” Mr Rao said.

He said dealers were are expecting compensation from manufacturers as they gave deep discounts to clear the BS-III stock and to call back the leftover vehicles. “A few manufacturers have already announced minimum compensation and dealers should bear some loss,” he said.

He said the losses would not impact the existing offers. “All the dealers will continue the offers towards cash back, exchange benefits, discounts and others,” he said.

Hyderabad joint transport commissioner J. Pandurang Naik said there was a ban on BS-III category cars from April 1, 2016. Only two-wheelers, autorickshaws, auto-trolleys and other transport vehicles were allowed for the registrations till March 31.

He said the RTAs had upgraded software to generate temporary registrations through dealers and the system would not accept any vehicle other than those complying with BS-IV standards. He was half a kilometre from home, but ended up travelling 6 km, thanks to Ola Cabs’ share taxi rule.

When city resident Siddharth Rao asked the driver why he wasn’t being dropped first, the driver replied that according to the Ola app, the protocol was to first drop the person who had booked the cab first, followed by the others.

Apart from the first book-first drop protocol, Ola Cabs also give first preference to Ola Select customers who pay membership charges to get benefits like no-peak pricing, first priority for booking requests and Prime cabs at Mini fares.

Mr Rao, a resident of Vanasthalipuram, said, “I was going home on Sunday and was the third person to book the Ola share cab. I was just halfa-kilometre from home. The driver, instead drove on to Hayathnagar, another 6 km.”

Vamsi Krishna, a regular Ola user and a Select member, said, “Ola Share works on three criteria. Ola automation system decides which riders should be dropped first. First preference is given to privileged customers who are Ola Select members. Second preference is estimated drive time; third is distance. What happened must be an error.”

Ola officials were not available for comment but an Ola driver said Ola Shares depend on Google route maps and that drivers “have to follow the Ola app routing algorithm” when it comes to dropping riders.