Multi-purpose vehicles manufacturer Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M) on Wednesday said it will soon hike the prices of its vehicles by 1-2 per cent. Hyundai Motor India (HMIL) and Honda Cars India (HCIL) had increased prices on Monday.

“We will be soon announcing a price hike of 1 to 2 per cent in order to offset increasing input costs and inflation,” Pawan Goenka, President - Automotive and Farm Equipment Sectors, M&M told reporters on the sidelines of CII annual general meeting here.

However, he did not share the details about which models would be impacted by the price hike.

He said the company’s sports utility vehicles have been also impacted due to increase in the excise duty (30 per cent from 27 per cent earlier) that the Finance Minister announced in the Budget.

Goenka said the company is awaiting a clarification from the Finance Ministry after the issue was taken up by Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers as well as Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises.

According to the industry analysts, there will soon be price hike announcements from other companies as well, including the two-wheelers manufacturers, as hike in input costs will be passed on to customers.

With the implementation of on-board diagnostics (OBD) II norms and increase in freight charges, Honda Cars had increased the prices of its all models from Rs 1,000 to Rs 10,000.

OBD refers to a vehicle's self-diagnostic and reporting capability.

It gives a vehicle owner or a repair technician access to state of health information for various vehicle sub-systems.

Hyundai had also increased the prices across all its models starting from Eon to Santa Fe. The price hike ranges from Rs 600 to Rs 2,830.

>ronendrasingh.s@thehindu.co.in

Related Topics