Tata Engg Rules Out Hike In Indica Prices

Tata Engineering has no immediate plans to raise the price of its Indica small car. This was made clear by the company's general manager (cars), S Krishnan, here today.

Krishnan said Telco does not believe in revising its car prices just because others in the industry have done so. He made the comment when his attention was drawn to Maruti Udyog's decision to increase prices of its standard 800 and other models.

He claimed that Indica has in the last four months emerged as the largest selling car in its segment (B class). In the current fiscal, Tata Engineering hopes to register a 30 to 40 per cent growth in Indica sales over the 40,000-odd units sold in the last fiscal. "We will continue this trend in the next fiscal as well," he said.

Krishnan, who was in town to open the 90th showroom of Tata cars in the city, said the company proposes to open 20 more showrooms in different parts of the country by March 2002, to take the total number of show-rooms to 110.

He said the petrol version of Indica, introduced last year, "has been very well received". The demand for petrol cars was almost the same as that for diesel cars, he said.

Krishnan admitted that the demand for Indica was more in the northern region. " But the south parts are also catching up. We want the demand for our car to be uniform throughout the country. That gives national character to a car," he said.

Andhra Pradesh home minister T Devender Gowd, who formally opened the show room at the Banjara Hills area, described Indica as "a truely Indian car". Rajesh Malik, managing director of Malik Cars, the showroom owner, welcomed the guests.