Mahindra Truck & Bus Division (MTBD) is optimistic that the company’s heavy commercial vehicle (HCV) portfolio will record 7-8 percent year-on-year growth as a result of a spurt in pre-buying of vehicles before BS IV norms become mandatory on April 1, 2017. On the LCV front, the company is hopeful of logging 6-7% growth this fiscal.

Speaking at a media meet in New Delhi today, Nalin Mehta, CEO and MD of MTBD, with GST planned for rollout on July 1, 2017 and the company’s intermediate commercial vehicles to roll out in two years, the company’s CV sales will start looking up.

Talking about the performance of the commercial vehicle industry, Mehta said that the current fiscal would see flat growth for the overall sector, with the LCV segment seeing growth as a result of the uptick in the rural sector and good monsoons.  The construction industry has been seeing an upswing with infrastructure development giving it a leg up. Tippers particularly have been doing well and the sector is pitted to grow at a fast pace next year.

Earlier today, Mehta launched a pilot project on making service support available at every 60km on the Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor, which accounts for nearly 30 percent of trucking traffic in the country. The company will next roll it out in the Golden Quadrilateral over the next 18-24 months. Constituting part of the company’s service support network, the initiative guarantees quality and reliable service to truckers within 2 hours of a vehicle breakdown, failing which Mahindra will pay up a penalty of Rs 500 for every additional hour.

“In addition, we will also be guaranteeing that 150 fast-moving spares that are identified as essential maintenance parts will be readily available all the time in the MPARTS Plazas. If not, they will be supplied free of cost. This will result in reduced downtime for our customers leading to higher uptime, more trips and better earnings,” said Mehta.

Service centres on the service corridors will carry out emergency repairs, part replacement and health-check-up of vehicles with service guarantees, so that the customers are assured of Mahindra’s service availability along the entire route. MTBD will soon launch a campaign to build awareness and to educate its customers about all the facilities to be offered at the service points along the service corridor.