India’s automobile sector is in crisis. It’s going through an unprecedented slump reason being the decline in demand, the emergence of hybrid and electric vehicles, BS-VI norms applicable from next year, and an overall economic slowdown across-the-board. Amidst hue and cry over the crisis and blame-game which has started lately, it is imperative to take a closer look at the issue.
Contradictions in economy persist since the economy is not always a win-win situation for all the participants. One has to lose to make sure the other is winning. A steadily growing automobile sector implies more vehicles on the road, traffic congestion and jams, environment degradation, air pollution, the burden of EMI on individuals, high expenditure, etc. A slowdown in the automobile sector will assuage the impact of above-mentioned factors up to a certain extent. But as a consequence, unemployment will further increase and make things worse.
Organic farming and Zero Budget Natural Farming are being promoted these days by the government—as these methods drastically reduce input costs for farmers. This farming technique uses some traditional methods, organic manure, cow dung, cow urine, etc. This reduces the demands of chemical fertilizers and pesticides in farms. But if everyone starts practicing these farming techniques, fertilizers industries will not have a great time.
Our digitalized and tech-friendly lifestyle resulted from modernization and responsibility towards environment conservation has lessened our reliance on paper. The idea of “Go green” is making use of paper irrelevant in some spheres of life, e.g., e-Ticket in railways. But isn’t this practice hampering our paper and pulp industry and people involved in these establishments? It does. Same is the case with coal and petroleum industries. Increasing reliance on renewable energy resources because of obvious reasons might create difficulties for the coal and petroleum industries in the future. Evidences of the same have already started coming from different regions of the world.
The slowdown we are witnessing today in the automobile sector is not something surprising or sudden. It’s a cumulative effect of a long-drawn process encompassing past human activities and their associated repercussions. An industry or business flourishes in an environment wherein all the participants involved in manufacturing a product gain equitably from the entire process. The contradiction of industry vs. others is inevitable, but the maintenance of equilibrium can prevent it from going extreme.