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India wants more cars, buses, 2-wheelers. Manufacturers are struggling to catch up

Maruti Suzuki’s pending bookings are said to have reached around 1.8 lakh, while Korean carmaker Kia is planning to ramp up production.

“We don’t like to experiment on customers”. This is what Maruti Suzuki’s Partho Banerjee told me at the launch of the face-lifted Baleno. Thousands of production Balenos are parked at the manufacturer’s yards and will soon be delivered once the final certification is done. “My sales head and dealers are screaming for more cars, but I don’t want to send products until all clearances are done,” said Banerjee, Senior Executive Officer (Marketing & Sales) at Maruti Suzuki India.

This was in context of the fact that Maruti Suzuki has a huge waiting period for vehicles as it heads into the festive season. While Banerjee didn’t give estimates, the manufacturer’s pending bookings are believed to have reached around 1.8 lakh. That is half the annual production of a single average automotive production line.

“Take the Brezza, we have over 60,000 bookings but production and sales are only around 15,000 units every month,” he said, mentioning that while the demand might seem great, dealers are having to........

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