Comprehension Passage
Read the given passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.
Over a million jobs are on the line in India’s auto industry and with 350,000 of them already gone, India’s chronic job shortage has been accentuated by the massive slowdown in a sector that’s long been a major employment creator.
According to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), the auto industry directly and indirectly employs as many as 37 million Indians. Car sales hit a 21-year low in August. In September, SIAM released data that shows automobile sector sales declined by 23.55 per cent in August. This came after five consecutive months of double-digit contractions. Cars account for an estimated for 7.1 percent of India’s gross domestic product and 49 per cent of its manufacturing GDP, according to a 2015 study, reported the Financial Times.
Even the current regime’s flagship ‘Make in India’ program was in part premised on the expectation that the country would become a major automobile manufacturing hub and the third-largest market in the world for automobiles by 2020 (according to Deloitte). India is among the 10 largest automobile producers in the world with an average annual production of 17.5 million vehicles. Before the slowdown, it was on its way to the top five automotive markets by volume globally.
The current administration’s political capital, accumulated after two thumping wins in the 2014 and 2019 General Elections, is being used up at a rapid pace as a result. The current Finance Minister, who has been copping a lot of criticism for the economic slowdown (GDP growth is down to 5%), was quick to react given the potential the auto crisis has of sparking mass discontent. In a widely quoted and controversial comment made last month, the Finance Minister, after a passing reference to the domestic and global economic troubles, said another factor for the dip in car sales was the supposed behavioural change among cab-crazy millennials.
What is beyond argument, though, is that the steep decline in vehicle sales has steered India on to a rocky road. And it one which, if government predictions of the slowdown being restricted to only one more quarter before the recovery starts are wrong, could mean trouble for it at the hustings. There are, after all, state elections coming up later this month for Haryana and Maharashtra which, along with Tamil Nadu, are seen as India’s auto hubs.
Over a million jobs are on the line in India’s auto industry and with 350,000 of them already gone, India’s chronic job shortage has been accentuated by the massive slowdown in a sector that’s long been a major employment creator.
According to the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), the auto industry directly and indirectly employs as many as 37 million Indians. Car sales hit a 21-year low in August. In September, SIAM released data that shows automobile sector sales declined by 23.55 per cent in August. This came after five consecutive months of double-digit contractions. Cars account for an estimated for 7.1 percent of India’s gross domestic product and 49 per cent of its manufacturing GDP, according to a 2015 study, reported the Financial Times.
Even the current regime’s flagship ‘Make in India’ program was in part premised on the expectation that the country would become a major automobile manufacturing hub and the third-largest market in the world for automobiles by 2020 (according to Deloitte). India is among the 10 largest automobile producers in the world with an average annual production of 17.5 million vehicles. Before the slowdown, it was on its way to the top five automotive markets by volume globally.
The current administration’s political capital, accumulated after two thumping wins in the 2014 and 2019 General Elections, is being used up at a rapid pace as a result. The current Finance Minister, who has been copping a lot of criticism for the economic slowdown (GDP growth is down to 5%), was quick to react given the potential the auto crisis has of sparking mass discontent. In a widely quoted and controversial comment made last month, the Finance Minister, after a passing reference to the domestic and global economic troubles, said another factor for the dip in car sales was the supposed behavioural change among cab-crazy millennials.
What is beyond argument, though, is that the steep decline in vehicle sales has steered India on to a rocky road. And it one which, if government predictions of the slowdown being restricted to only one more quarter before the recovery starts are wrong, could mean trouble for it at the hustings. There are, after all, state elections coming up later this month for Haryana and Maharashtra which, along with Tamil Nadu, are seen as India’s auto hubs.
What is the central theme of the given passage?
1
Millennials are not buying cars.
2
Elections and the automobile industry
3
The crisis in the automobile industry in India.
4
The global automobile crisis