new delhi automobile sales in india witnessed its sharpest decline in nearly 19 years in july dropping 1871 per cent rendering almost 15000 workers jobless over the past twothree months as the sector reels under a prolonged slump auto industry body siam reported on tuesdayas per data released by the society of indian automobile manufacturers siam vehicle sales across categories including passenger vehicles pvs and twowheelers stood at 1825148 units last month as against 2245223 units in july 2018the previous biggest decline across overall domestic automobile sales was recorded in december 2000 when it fell 2181 per centsimilarly domestic pv sales also saw the biggest fall in nearly 19 years slumping by 3098 per cent to 200790 units as compared with 290931 units in the same period a year ago previously the worst decline was registered in december 2000 when wholesales had fallen 3522 per centthe fall in pv sales in july was also the ninth consecutive month of declinesiam said passenger car sales in july were also worst since december 2000 when the segment had declined by 3986 per cent last month domestic car sales were down 3595 per cent at 122956 units as against 191979 units in july 2018besides total twowheeler sales last month declined 1682 per cent to 1511692 units compared to 1817406 units in the yearago month commercial vehicle sales were down 2571 per cent to 56866 units in july as compared with 76545 units in july 2018the data shows how urgent the need is for revival package from the government there is urgent need for some kind do action the industry is doing all it can to promote sales i think this is the time when the industry really needs the support of government coming out with a revival package siam director general vishnu mathur told reporters herethe revival package is necessary to arrest fall in sales and to bring back the industry on growth path he addedmathur said that almost 15000 jobs mostly temporary and casual workers have already been lost in the automobile manufacturing companies over the last two to three months besides over a million jobs are on the line in the automotive components segment he addedwith plunging sales nearly 300 dealerships have been forced to close down leading to loss of around two lakh jobs mathur saidunderlining the current grave situation of the auto industry he said that in the previous downturns the sector witnessed in 200809 and 201314 at least some of the segments of the industry were growinghowever this time around all segments of the industry are witnessing decline in sales he saidseeking urgent government help mathur said we are hoping that the government would soon come out with a revival package however it is still not clear what all elements would be included in itthe auto industry has sought reduction in gst rate introduction of vehicle scrappage policy revival of nbfc sector as sales are mostly dependent on availability of finance and delay in implementation of the proposed