The 50th Annual Convention of SIAM (Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers), India’s apex body representing automobile industry kicked off yesterday with the theme of this year’s Annual Convention being “Dynamics of Managing Growth: The Next Phase of the Auto Industry”. The convention saw participation from Senior Government officials, Global and Indian Industry leaders. The inaugural session was followed by special plenary session on the theme “Shifting the Horizon.”
The SIAM President Dr Pawan Goenka reminded the industry’s responsibility towards environment and said that the auto industry was cautious towards the environmental concerns and called for uniform emission norms. Dr Goenka announced SIAM’s new initiative of Voluntary Fuel Efficiency Regime which will promote lower fuel consumption. Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh welcomed SIAM’s initiative on fuel efficiency but called for enforcement of Mandatory Fuel Efficiency Standards. The Environment Minister urged the captains of the industry not to see environment as an impediment but consider it as an issue of public health.
Heavy Industry Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh assured government’s help in making Indian auto industry the leading force in the world. He suggested the auto industry to focus on building and augmenting value chain, upgradation of technology, capacity building, human resource management and investment in Research and Development. Union Road Transport and Highways Kamal Nath emphasized on the government’s vision on building roads and how roads were important for the long term growth of auto industry. Admitting that India’s roads were in poor condition, the Minister promised that his ministry was working hard to solve this problem of bad roads infrastructure. He also announced that his ministry was working on the introduction of uniform tall technology in order to ensure uniform vehicular movement across the country.
