Stable policies key to auto sector growth: Srinivasan

Stable government policies and strong technical ecosystem at universities are key to promoting auto sector growth, TVS Company Chairman and Managing Director Venu Srinivasan said today.
He also said that "bureaucratic" IITs need to be unshackled for greater interaction and working with the industry.
Huge growth opportunities exist in the sector and the industry needs to pro-actively engage with the government on issues such as skilled labour, research and infrastructure, he said.
For developing the complete ecosystem for the auto sector, "stable policy is one of the important things we need in the ecosystem", Srinivasan said.
Speaking at a SIAM function, he further said: "Courts unfortunately coming in and changing the BS-IV introduction created such a great deal of pain for the whole industry."

At the same time, he said, the industry also has to work on strengthening the technical ecosystem in universities.

"We have to work with the HRD ministry and really unshackle the IITs from the control which they have. They have such limited flexibilities (in terms of) the ways they can engage with the industry... We know how difficult it is to work with them in terms of constraints and way of (their) working...Very bureaucratic," he said.
Huge potential of growth is there in the sector and "we expect employment to reach 38 million by 2022" from 20 million directly and indirectly currently, he said.

He further said that demonetisation and introduction of the Goods and Services Tax will make "us more transparent economy based on tax paid money and it augurs well for future growth".
He said the most important disruption that the sector has faced is electrification and it is going to happen and "we need to be at the forefront of this".
He also emphasised on the need of skilling people as "it is happening sporadically".
It can not be done only by the government and the private sector has to significantly involved in this process, he said, adding that the government has an important role in creating demand conditions.

He said India does not have universities and battery labs like that in China.
One of the universities in China has 25,000 students and "all IITs put together have less than half of that", he said, adding that professors here should be incentivised so that they can engage with industry.
Speaking at the function, Assistant Director Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) T Mookiah said that they are working on several things which can be used by the auto sector.
"We are working on hydrogen fuel cells and light weight material and all this can be used in auto sector," he said.