Overall, commercial vehicles stood at 1.01 lakh units during April-December 2000-01 over 1.17 lakh units in the same period of the previous fiscal.Sales in the M&H segment, which contributed 56.7 per cent of the total commercial vehicles sales, fell by 24.7 per cent to 57,593 units from 76,365 units in the year-on-year period.

However, light commercial vehicle sales went up by 7.3 per cent to 44,000 units during April-December 2000-01 from 40,998 units in the corresponding period last year.

Tata Engineering's M&H commercial vehicle sales declined 29.7 per cent to 36,217 units in the review period from 51,550 units in the year-ago period. The company had earlier said that it would experience flat growth in turnover in this fiscal.

Sales of Hinduja Group flagship Ashok Leyland also fell by 13.8 per cent to 21,280 units during April- December 2000-01 from 24,695 units in the same period last year.

Industry analysts have attributed the decline in M&H commercial vehicle sales to the diesel price hike which pushed up operating costs of the vehicles.

Added to this was the implementation of uniform sales tax and the current economic slowdown which has eroded sales in organised sectors like cement and steel. Poor monsoons also compounded the problem by reducing the availability of freight. Tata Engineering continued to dominate the light commercial vehicle segment with sales of 27,579 units during April-December 2000-01, up 8 per cent, over 25,543 units in the year-ago period.

Sales of Eicher Motors, which has also announced plans to enter the heavy commercial vehicles segment, went up by 24.5 per cent to 5,677 units against 4,558 units in the year-on- year period.

Swaraj Mazda recorded a 38.1 per cent growth in sales at 3,553 units in the first nine months of the current fiscal against 2,571 units in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal.

Sales of Ashok Leyland stood at 318 vehicles in the review period, up 36.4 per cent over 233 units sold in the same period last year.

Pune-based Bajaj Tempo' sales, however, fell by 30.7 per cent to 2,298 units during April-December 2000-01 against 3,318 vehicles sold in the same period last year.

Mahindra & Mahindra sold 4,575 units, down 4.1 per cent over 4,775 units sold in the year-ago period.