OT:
Count.. never knew you are on xbhp..

What they mean by 7 years is that duties in CBUs and SKD's (what you guys are interested in) won't be slashed right away. Those things are not of a primary concern to the governments. Import duties on automotive products will depend on manufacturers lobbying capacity and priorities. For eg; manufacturers will want mass selling products to be cheaper to import. A 5 lakh (litre) motorcycle is never going to be mass selling product. Plus, a product will have to be made in japan to qualify for this reduction in duty. Look at the ninja 250 for example. Its a Japanese product imported (as a skd for further duty exemption) into india from Thailand with whom we share a FTA, still it coats almost 60% over it's international price.

Also, don't forget German car makers and their pressures on our government. We import more German vehicles than Japanese. Germany will not be too pleased if we slash import duties for the Japs.

Also, with hero Honda and RE planning on higher capacity engines for their bikes, there will be resistance from their camps as well.

Harley Davidson, who is responsible for SBKs being legally available in india isn't going to sit quiet either.

Also, if duties are reduced considerably for SKDs and CKDs, manufacturers will have to setup assembly plants here and thats going to cost quite a lot if they need to manufacture as per their international standards. Will you be content with a locally assembled R1? I sure won't.

Lot of things need to be considered here before expecting cheaper liter-class bikes.

The government had put these rules as a protection to our local manufacturers some 20-30 years ago so that they could stand up on their own feet without too much worry of external competition from highly developed markets. It was a protection to help them grow easier and get as good as their foreign counterparts. The manufacturers instead of using that as a boon and using it to driving themselves forward in search of perfection have misused it as a cushion to relax their ugly butts on and get rich and make a mockery out of us. They didn't even try to achieve betterment let alone achieve perfection. And this falls true for most industries.

Speaking strictly about the biking industries I feel Bajaj, Hero and TVS could have used their partnerships a hell lot better rather than just churning out 100-110-125-150cc bikes with better paint jobs all the time. It is only in the last decade that they have started trying. Albeit I feel their efforts are still half hearted. Else why would our most powerful bike be a mere 220cc. I blame the manufacturers for depriving us of good products inspite of the protection given to them. They just took the protection and the consumer for granted.

I strongly feel the protection should be removed and the foreign products allowed at a nominal duty. I guess open competition would be the only way to get the Indian manufacturers to wake up and realise that the cushion wasn't for them to warm their butts on but to protect them incase they fell down trying to aim higher.

just a few of my thoughts.

@j4zb4 : Well said dude, Indian companies were engrossed only in sales and 'leadership' based on sales numbers, on R&D they have failed pretty badly. Govt's intention and expectation was huge to make Indian auto independent and competitive worldwide. Indian auto has let down the govt. intention in a big way.
Govt., should start processing Japs' request, Japs are partners in Indian Infra in big way, from cleaning lakes to metros, they fund a lot. Japs' are also harmless and provide good/innovative product with quality and reliability that can't be matched by any other countries.
Indian auto big wigs are lot richer out of tie-ups and they can use the cash for something else if they feel threatened by Japs' products...just my opinion

the only ray of hope for people like us will be when yams honda etc... start their assembling operations in India for big bikes.... till then bask in the glory of 110% duty.....