We are seeing a modest revival in the commercial vehicle industry. Month-on-month vehicle sales figures apart, the spurt in sale of tyres clearly shows that vehicles are moving -- and that's because there is demand. The current revival should pick momentum and will turn robust in the second-half of the current financial year. Lest we lose perspective, we must remember, we are talking about a revival in relative terms, against a very low base of the recession-hit 1998-99.

We hope to retain and improve our market share, which can grow anywhere between 10 and 20 per cent on the 1998-99 volumes.

Our concentration is on attaining complete Euro-I readiness, ahead of the deadline -- readiness in all aspects including after-market infrastructure. In terms of product introductions, we will focus on Cargo 1512, which has already been launched in select markets. We are developing newer applications and Cargo 1512 will have an all-India presence before the end of the current fiscal.

We had increased our prices by around 2 per cent on May 10, 1999. No price hike is being planned at present.

There are no plans to raise funds, at present.

It's too early to answer that question.

India is waking up to the social and environmental cost of development. The developed countries of today had gone through this cycle in the post-Second World War decades. It is now 35 years since the state of California took the first ever step to control automobile pollution. As early as in 1970, the US Congress adopted the first major Clean Air Act and instituted the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Starting with the first set of emission norms in 1992, it is catching-up time for India. India 2000 norms are closely aligned to the Euro-I norms Europe adopted in 1992. For diesel-driven commercial vehicles, the Year 2000 norms reduce gaseous emissions to less than half of the current limits. For the first time, particulate matter has been brought into the purview.

The long-term gains from thetightening of emission norms is obvious. At the same time, these improvements are expected only in the new vehicles that will come on the roads. New registrations account for less than 10 per cent of the in-use vehicles with much higher emissions depending on their vintage and the regulations in force at the time of their manufacture.

Unless we reckon the in-use vehicle population, the emission norms will fail to provide immediate answers. In fact, if we are serious about the air quality, we have to take a hard look at (and some hard decisions on) old vintage vehicles, alternate fuels, fuel quality, traffic management, urban mass transportation, vehicle maintenance, driving habits and vehicle inspection.

Our current engine families -- namely Leyland, Hino and IVECO -- will meet the Year 2000 norms in both turbocharged and non-turbocharged versions. There will be continuity in technology, making things easy for the customer and the after-marketsupport infrastructure.

At a time when compressed natural gas (CNG) is emerging as the favoured urban fuel, we have a head start, having made India's first CNG bus in 1997, for BEST. Ten CNG buses are all already running in Mumbai. The first bus, out of an initial order for 10 CNG buses, has already joined the fleet of Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC). We are in a position to meet the CNG bus requirement of the National Capital Region (NCR) at the rate of 1,000 buses per year to start with.