Finance & economics | Two-speed transmission

Is India’s boom helping the poor?

What vehicle sales reveal about the country’s growth

Busy street in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India, on May 18, 2022. (Photo by Creative Touch Imaging Ltd./NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Image: Getty Images
|Delhi and Mumbai

In a land where labour is cheap, the man who drives the most luxury cars is not a billionaire. He is a parking attendant. On a meagre salary, he must park, double-park and triple-park cars in tight spaces, and then extricate them. In India, where car sales have increased by 16% since the start of the covid-19 pandemic—a trend partly driven by the growing popularity of hefty sports-utility vehicles—this tricky job is becoming even more difficult.

This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Two-speed transmission”

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