A car showroom in Patna. Telegraph picture

Patna, Aug. 10: The automobile sale in the state has all of a sudden taken a reverse gear.

Despite a growth rate of over 25 per cent witnessed during the economic slowdown, auto sales (both cars and two-wheelers) have registered a decline of 18.02 per cent in the first four months of this fiscal compared to the corresponding period of last year.

Total 93,420 vehicles have been sold up to July this fiscal against 1,13,946 vehicles sold last year.

Car and two-wheeler sales have shown a negative growth in the first four months against the corresponding period last year.

Car sales stood at 3,431 against last year’s sales of 5,962 witnessing a decline of 42.46 per cent whereas sales of two-wheelers declined by 19.27 per cent selling 69,817 units against last year’s 86,479 units.

The decline was witnessed in almost all categories of vehicles like cars, two-wheelers, trucks, buses, taxis, SUVs, except that of three-wheelers and tractors which rose by a minuscule percentage.

The sale of three-wheelers and tractors stood at 3,675 and 5,700 this year against 3,348 and 5,361 units respectively in comparison to corresponding period of first four months of last year.

Patna witnessed the slump in the sales of vehicles, as only 1,899 cars were sold in the first four months of the financial year against last year’s sale of 4,204 units in the same period.

However, the two-wheeler sales in the capital have been worst affected as it could register a sale of 7,369 units against a sale of 18,813 last year.

Deputy chief minister, Sushil Kumar Modi, who also holds the finance portfolio, told The Telegraph: “It is very difficult to say at the moment the reasons behind the slowdown. Such inference cannot be made on the basis of sales figure of two or three months. We will definitely go into the details as to why it went down if it is so and certainly take steps to check such tendency. Our automobile sales have grown at more than 30 per cent per year.”