New Delhi, Dec 25 : Chairman of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. R C Bhargava has said that sales of automobiles have not picked up due to lack of easy loans from Banks.

Talking to reporters during a National Road Safety Mission programme here on Wednesday, Bhargava said, "It''s not about loans being cheap, till the time these loans won''t be available easily, automobile sector will have problems, lot of loan applications are getting cancelled. There are many banks which are not ready to provide loans, to the customers, who want to buy cars."

Car sales in India dropped by nearly a fifth in November, the worst fall in eight years, intensifying the woes of global auto makers who had planned that emerging markets would make up for waning demand in developed markets.

Auto makers have long seen emerging markets like India, China, Russia and South America as their long-term targets, anticipating robust demand from there and spotting opportunity in their low-cost manufacturing.

Sales have slumped spectacularly across developed markets like the United States, Japan and Europe, as well as emerging economies like China and Russia, forcing automakers to revisit their plans for developing markets.

Indian car sales in November fell to 83,059 units from 103,031 a year ago according to data from the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM).

Sales of trucks and buses in India, the world''s fourth largest market for such vehicles, slumped by nearly half from a year ago, steeper than a fall of 48.6 percent in January
1998. Bike sales fell by a fifth to 431,171 units.

Much the decline is blamed on scarce and expensive auto loans, the result of a hawkish monetary policy adopted by the Reserve Bank of India till mid-October. (ANI)