After two decades of impressive growth, the automobile sector's performance has not been encouraging after 2006-07, but its growth turned modestly positive last fiscal, touching a domestic turnover of Rs 2.19 lakh crore, the Economic Survey said.

Although auto industry production grew at a CAGR of 11.5 per cent over the last five years, in 2007-08 it fell into negative territory (-2.3 per cent), after witnessing a high growth rate of 13.6 per cent in 2006-07.

"However, in 2008-09, the industry has witnessed a modest growth of three per cent," the pre-Budget Economic Survey, tabled in Parliament, noted.

But, the utility and commercial vehicle segment remained an area of concern with negative growth rates of (-)11.9 per cent and (-)24 per cent, respectively.

The domestic turnover of the sector in 2008-09 was about Rs 2,18,996 crore (Rs 2189.96 billion), while exports totalled Rs 31,782 crore (Rs 317.82 billion). Taken together, domestic as well as export figures, the total size of India's [ Images ] auto industry was Rs 2,50,778 crore (Rs 2507.78 billion) during that fiscal.

"The turnover and the exports of the automobile vehicle industry in 2008-09 were at Rs 1,42,646 crore (Rs 1426.46 billion) and Rs 16,782 crore (Rs 167.82 billion)," the Survey said.