in the recently-held annual meeting of the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers ( siam ), the industry who's who was present in full strength to vent their anger against environmentalists, who have been coaxing them to meet tighter emission standards at the earliest. Venu Srinivasan, siam president and chief executive officer ( ceo ) tvs Suzuki, while addressing the gathering said: "The auto industry knows its responsibility towards protection of the environment. Yet, we are unfairly being accused of not taking the matter seriously by non-governmental organisations. We have been accused of being reactive and not proactive.'

The industry representatives grumbled that pressures like court hearings and public interest litigations ( pil s) are only "knee-jerk reactions of society. Court hearings and pil s are not the answer to the problems. What the automobile sector needs is a long-term policy to come up with a long-term solution to the problem'. The excuse was that since India has got into the business of emission regulations so late