new delhi auto industry leaders on wednesday asked the government for a stimulus package including gst reduction on vehicles for the sector which has been hit by an unprecedented slump in salesin a meeting with finance minister nirmala sitharaman industry leaders including maruti suzuki chairman r c bhargava mm president automotive sector rajan wadhera who is also president of siam along with representatives from components sector body acma and dealers body fada drew attention to the challenges including job losses faced by the industryyes we have asked for certain enablers for the auto industry and they have thought on it i am very hopeful that there will be a stimulus package for the auto industry coming soon society of indian automobile manufacturers siam president rajan wadhera told ptithe government wanted to understand from the industry about reasons for the slump in demand and possible solutions to the issue he said adding that the heavy industries ministry was supportiveduring the meeting he said the auto industry broadly presented factors such as issues regarding availability and affordability of financing increasing cost of acquisition of vehicles and change in axle load capacity for commercial vehicles that have hurt demandhe said the auto industry also reiterated that the pending notification on increase in vehicle registration fees should not happen as the sector is already reeling under stress of low demandwadhera said the industry also apprised the government of the job losses in the sector following the sales slowdownon the availability and affordability of finance he said immediate measures are needed to reduce finance cost we told them government that banks should be directed to pass on the repo rate cuts to the marketthe auto industry also wants the government to direct banks not to reduce lending to those segments which has the lowest npa such as the passenger vehicles segmentwadhera also said during the meeting the auto industry wanted the government to also instruct banks not to stop lending to people who are following healthy financial practices and not treat all dealers as defaultersbesides the industry also asked the government to bring quickly an incentivebased scrappage policy to replace old and polluting vehicles which can help accelerate demand for new vehiclesto sum it up what we really need from the government is that for the revival of demand there has to be reduction of gst rates from 28 to 18 per cent we have been talking to the government on the same wadhera saidthe auto industry has been going on a prolonged slump passenger vehicles pv segment has been the worst hit with sales continuing to decline for almost a year nowas per siam figures vehicle wholesale across all the categories declined by 1235 per cent to 6085406 units in apriljune against 6942742 units in same period of last yearfederation of automobile dealers associations fada has stated that nearly two lakh jobs have been cut in the last three months due to the slowdown