TL;DR
The Indian auto industry, with strong 2025 sales, presents its Union Budget 2026 expectations, focusing on domestic manufacturing support, rationalized EV duty structures, and extended PLI schemes for auto components.
Following a period of strong sales growth in 2025, major players in the Indian automotive sector, including Skoda Auto Volkswagen India and Ducati India, have articulated their key expectations from the Union Budget 2026, set to be tabled on February 1, 2026.
Piyush Arora, MD & CEO of Skoda Auto Volkswagen India Pvt Ltd, emphasized the need for sustained support for domestic manufacturing and increased allocation for road and transport infrastructure. He also highlighted the importance of rationalizing the inverted duty structure for Electric Vehicles (EVs) to enhance domestic manufacturing competitiveness and accelerate India's transition to sustainable mobility.
The auto component industry, which saw a 6.8% year-on-year growth in the first half of FY2026, also has significant expectations. Ravi Mehra, MD, Uno Minda, stressed the criticality of extending and deepening the PLI-Auto scheme to include EV subsystems like sensors, semiconductors, and advanced electronics, to strengthen domestic value addition. These proposals aim to bolster the sector's growth, especially in the EV segment, and align with India's broader manufacturing ambitions.
