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CHENNAI, June 4

SKODA Auto India Private Ltd on Tuesday launched its Octavia in Tamil Nadu. The company has appointed Millennium Motors as its dealer for Tamil Nadu. Millennium Motors is part of the Coimbatore-based DRS Industries, which has been promoted by the family members of the Coimbatore-based Pioneer Mills Group.

Millennium Motors has invested about Rs 3 crore in setting up the dealership and service facility in Chennai, and will be setting up a service facility in Coimbatore within 90 days from now, according to Mr D. Shivakumar, Managing Director, Millennium Motors.

The company will also open service facilities in other important towns in Tamil Nadu.

Addressing a press conference here, Mr Bipin Datar, Head - Sales and Marketing, Skoda Auto India, said the company hoped to sell about 6,000 cars in 2002. It had sold about 1,200 so far this year, with 80 per cent of them being the 1.9-litre turbo diesel engine cars.

He said that Skoda Auto India had committed, in the MoU it signed with the Government of India in 1999, to invest $54 million in five to seven years. The second phase expansion of the assembly operations at the plant at Aurangabad in Maharashtra was on. This would take the assembling capacity from the present 22 cars a day to 30. Besides, more parts such as engine and gearbox would be mounted on the car at the plant after the expansion was completed.

On completion of the expansion, the Octavia cars, which were being brought in as semi-knocked down kits and assembled at the plant, would attract total levies (customs duty and excise) of 89 per cent against the present 121 per cent, he said.

Mr Datar said Skoda planned to set up 17 dealerships and 27 service points by the year-end. He said the company would launch the Octavia Elegance, which would be the company's entry into the D segment.

The car was likely to be priced at around Rs 12 lakh. Following that, the company would launch the top of the line Laurin and Klement, whose pricing, he said, would be parallel to that of the Ford Mondeo. Also on the cards was the Octavia Superb, which, Mr Datar said, was comparable to the Mercedes Benz E class but at a price much lower than that.

Asked if the company was planning to source components from India for exports, Mr Datar said that was a possibility, especially for parts such as horns and headlamps.

However, the suppliers here would have to meet the global standards set by Volkswagen, which was a 100 per cent owner of Skoda.

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