Rajiv Bajaj says India should have followed Japan and Korea⁠— calls the lockdown ‘draconian’

• Bajaj Auto sales slid almost 38% in March when the COVID-19 lockdown was in place for just a weekBajaj Auto MD Rajiv Bajaj said that India ended up having the worst of both— the Covid-19 and the economy— as the effect of a 'draconian lockdown.'
• Bajaj thinks India made a mistake looking at the "West" and not the "East."
• India's largest two-wheeler and three-wheeler manufacturer Bajaj Auto experienced a major setback in the number of sales since the announcement of the nationwide lockdown.

In a conversation with Rahul Gandhi of Indian National Congress, the Bajaj Auto Managing Director, Rajiv Bajaj, said that India ended up having the worst of both— the Covid-19 and the economy— as the effect of a 'draconian lockdown.'

"India has been in a draconian lockdown since the coronavirus outbreak. The draconian lockdown has flattened the wrong curve and that being of the GDP," said Bajaj.


Bajaj thinks India made a mistake looking at the "West" and not the "East." He said India should have looked at Japan and South Korea rather than Europe and the US.

"Don't understand how despite being an Asian country, we sought not to look East; we looked at Italy, France, Spain, UK & US. Not right benchmarks in any sense be it in terms of inherent immunity, temperature, demography etc. We should have never been looking at the west, who are geographically and demographically different from us."

India's largest two-wheeler and three-wheeler manufacturer Bajaj Auto experienced a major setback in the number of sales since the announcement of the nationwide lockdown. In March although the coronavirus lockdown period was just for one week, Bajaj's sales slid almost 38% in March followed by zero domestic sales in April.

On March 22, the government announced a nationwide lockdown to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and Bajaj to halt operations until May 5 when the Chakan plant, in the outskirts of Pune reopened.

However, things are yet not different for Bajaj; the company reported a fall of 70% in its domestic sales in the month of May. The company said its total sales during the month under review fell to 1,27,128 units from 4,19,235 units sold during the corresponding month of 2019.

Since the beginning of 2020, Bajaj Auto's share price has taken a massive hit because of the coronavirus pandemic, subdued sales and shutting down of showrooms and factories. The share price declined over 12%.

However, after the ease of the lockdown, the stocks are slowly recovering and up over 15% since the opening of the Bajaj Chakan plant on May 5.

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