Making it in India
By making electric buses indigenously JBM Group is already contributing towards the ‘Make in India' initiative. "We are perfectly aligned with this initiative of the government, more precisely from the perspective of our bus division. We are manufacturing the buses in India and are sourcing all key aggregates from local suppliers. Our key focus is towards developing indigenous sources for all key aggregates, systems & components catering to domestic & global requirements," mentioned Arya.
Moreover, the group is working on government's other initiatives as well. "In our journey so far, we have witnessed that there is an acute shortage of skilled manpower because of which people earn less income than they should. In order to do our bit toward managing this challenge, we have developed different programmes for skill development in collaborationwith Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, Government of Madhya Pradesh and few other state governments. We are training close to 2,000 students every year under these programmes," Arya stated.
Furthermore he feels that, people are one of the important assets for the company, technology and innovation being other two. "We draw our strengths from TIP (Technology, Innovation and People) and we believe TIP has answers to all our problems as a business and society. We are utilising TIP to solve problems of mobility and electricity. Our vision is to develop sustainable solutions in auto, mass
transportation and renewable energy domains for making the future greener and promising," he shared.
Looking at the bright side
With these initiatives of moving forward in the automotive industry, the future of the JBM Group looks bright. Additionally, government is also doing its bit in indirectly boosting the industry. "The government is implementing a 23 percent hike in salary for its employees from August 2016. If we believe NSSO data which showed households spend most of their consumer durable expenditure on buying
vehicles, the highest share of the salary hike will go toward purchase of vehicles. And there is a precedent to this. After the government approved the recommendation of 6th Pay Commission in 2008 giving a 40 percent increase in salaries of central government employees, vehicle sales to government employees had zoomed. In addition to this, FY 2016-17 is going to be much better as the economy is reviving and credit scenario is improving. These factors will unleash a consumption spree in the economy. Looking at the signals, we at JBM Group are expecting a healthy increase in demand going forward," concluded Arya.
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