Jamshedpur, Oct. 20: Every year during Dhanteras, goddess Lakshmi is welcomed and worshipped with new home décor and cars but this may not be the case this year. The financial crisis is showing its effect on the automobile industry ahead of Dhanteras.

Advance booking of vehicles has failed to take off though only a week is left for the festival and the dealers are pessimistic about achieving their sales figure this year.

The automobile dealers said most of the banks are not providing loan to buy vehicles or have tightened norms. Some of the dealers are trying to fight the loan crisis through their resources.

“Last year, we sold 47 cars and were targeting to sell 50 this year. The response has been lukewarm and it seems tough to attain the target. Till now, we have only managed to book around 30 vehicles for Dhanteras. We are keeping our fingers crossed and hope that the target would be met,” said sales manager of Motor World, a Maruti showroom at Mango, A. Chandrasekhar.

Motor World organised road shows in Bistupur today to find more customers.

Sales manager of ASL Motors Private Limited showroom at Adityapur Pervez Khalid blames the finance crisis for decline in sale of automobiles. “People preferred to buy a vehicle on loan. But very few banks are presently financing four-wheelers for its customers. Thus this has dwindled the customers’ presence ahead of Dhanteras,” said Khalid.

The two-wheelers segment is also feeling the heat of the finance crisis.

“Last year, we sold around 145 vehicles on dhanters and this year we were looking forward to sell 200 vehicles. So far, we have are received very few enquiries for two wheelers,” said Jahid, a sales executive at Union Bikes in Sakchi.

Officials of Fairdeal Bajaj, authorised dealer for Bajaj Auto Limited at Bistupur, P. Kumar Rao said: “We are getting queries for finance from our customers. Most of the people in the steel city are dependent on banks to buy their two-wheelers, however as the banks are not offering loans there has been a decline in sale.”

Branch manager of a private sector bank, on condition of anonymity, conceded: “We are not giving loans for two wheelers to any one. Customers can not expect loans now for buying four-wheelers or electronic good as all the banks are going slow in providing loans.”

Lead bank manager of East Singhbhum B. Mishra said: “The financial problem would come to an end soon as the RBI would announce its new credit policy next week.”