New Delhi, Oct 26: Growing truck sales of Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland, Eicher Motors and Swaraj Motors drove commercial vehicles sales up by an impressive 32 per cent during the first six months this fiscal. A total of 1.09 lakh buses and trucks were sold during April-September 2003 over 83,106 units in the same period last year, data compiled by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) showed.

While medium and heavy (M&H) bus and truck sales went up by 36.4 per cent to 66,521 units, sales of Light Commercial Vehicles (LCVs) grew by 25.6 per cent to 43,167 units. In the M&H category, truck sales posted a 39 per cent rise to 54,703 units while bus sales surged by 25.5 per cent to 11,818 units.

Sale of light trucks also went up by 38.2 per cent while light buses suffered a 4.35 per cent drop to 9,711 units.

In the M&H category, truck sales of Tata Motors, India's biggest bus and truck manufacturer, surged by 38.4 per cent to 36,098 units while that of Ashok Leyland jumped by 41 per cent to 13,951 units. Eicher Motors and Swaraj Mazda also posted a rise of 36.1 and 74.8 per cent to 3,295 and 1,250 units respectively.

Sales of Czech truck maker Tatra remained flat at 48 units while Swedish firm Volvo recorded a 68.8 per cent drop to 61 units during the period under review.

Sale of trucks have been witnessing a steady growth due to speedy progress on various highway projects, specially the golden quadrilateral project, analysts said. Bureau Report