current fiscal additionally a hike in the minimum support price msp for key crops will also boost rural income and discretionary spendingbetter economic indicatorsthe other factors that spurred a positive sentiment beyond the pentup demand were the key economic indicators such as the manufacturing pmi of 589 the highest since may 2010 the current account surplus of 39 of gdp in q1fy21 the highest in 65 quarters and the higher collection of the goods and services tax gstin september 2020 gst mopup was at inr 95480 crore compared to inr 91916 crore in the same month a year ago in october it increased to inr 105155 crore as against inr 95379 crore in the same month last yearbut do these factors indicate that the going forward will be rosy the industry is sceptical we are sure of a sustainable growth till december but we really dont know how things will transpire beyond that says r c bhargava chairman of maruti suzuki the countrys leading carmaker despite the sparks in the market the industry pundits are reluctant to make any prediction as the new normal unfolds a number of unseen and unidentifiable trends are cropping up the retail numbers available on vahan give only a confusing picture we expect the pentup demand to continue till march 2021tarun gargin september this year 216889 units were retailed as compared to 196069 units in the same month in the previous year a growth of over 10 even though the retail number in october moved up from that in september the yearonyear retail remained almost flat at 290474 units as against 289540 units in october 2019dealers say that their inventory has slightly inched up the gap between retail and factory dispatch has moved to slightly uncomfortable levels the average inventory in the pv segment has reached about five weeks and for twowheelers it has touched almost eight weeks says vinkesh gulati president fada according to our research the big players have higher inventory than their low volume counterpartsit is to be noted that the growth is from a smaller base the passenger vehicle industry has been under severe pressure over the last two years as the sales declined by 18 and 1 in fy 201920 in fy1819 respectively experts also count pentup demand as an essential factor in market dynamics they think it will continue to march 2021according to our internal study on account of the pandemic about 10 lakh people postponed their plans to buy cars during marchjuly 2020 and about 80 of them are going to buy new cars till march 2021 garg said death of diesel data source siamenvironmental regulations and the impact of the pandemic have changed and disrupted the indian passenger vehicle market completely some trends have been reversed and some have accelerated beyond expectation in terms of fuel preferences in the first half of this fiscal diesel car sales were down to 2 from 14 in the same period a year ago but sales of gasoline vehicles surged to