Mumbai, March 29: The commercial vehicle sector is likely to be the worst-hit by the Supreme Court ban on the sale and registration of non-BS-IV compliant vehicles from April 1. Analysts, however, feel the impact on cars will be minimal.

Industry sources said dealers had 16,000 units of BS-III cars and 7 lakh two-wheelers. The number of unsold commercial vehicles and three-wheelers are 90,000 and 40,000 units, respectively.

"In value terms, the loss to dealers could be around Rs 12,000 crore," sources added.

Auto companies could look to export some vehicles to countries that follow emission norms similar to BS-III.

Experts, however, feel the development will impact commercial vehicle (CV) makers the most. This is because of their sizeable inventory, costs associated with recalls (from dealers) and upgradation to BS-IV norms, according to Subrata Ray, group vice-president, corporate sector ratings at Icra.

Original equipment manufacturers (OEM) will also be pushed for higher discounts to liquidate existing stock.

"Relatively older or slow moving models may be difficult to liquidate. OEMs will also explore options to export vehicles to the nearby markets. Moreover, low availability of BS-IV compliant vehicles could also hurt CV sales in the upcoming month as OEMs were expecting strong pre-buying of BS-III vehicles in the fourth quarter of this fiscal," Ray added.

Ashok Leyland CEO Vinod K. Dasari, however, dismissed any major impact on his company.

"Contrary to various reports about Ashok Leyland having to take a huge write-off, the company clarifies that the impact will be minimal," he said.

Shares of Ashok Leyland fell almost three per cent to Rs 84.05 after falling around 6.3 per cent during intra-day trades.

Stocks of other automobile companies also came under pressure. However, many of these counters recovered from their lows even as they ended in the red. While Tata Motors ended 0.70 per cent lower, TVS Motor Company was down 0.35 per cent and Maruti Suzuki 0.58 per cent. However, the Bajaj Auto scrip finished in the green, rising 0.29 per cent over its last close.

Gulshan Ahuja, secretary-general of the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA), told The Telegraph that while the association appreciated the Supreme Court's concern over pollution, this sudden decision will cause uncertainty and disruption in the market in addition to resulting in a huge loss to the automobile dealers.