``The response has been splendid,'' claims A K Seth, General Manager, Operations, Concorde Motors Limited, looking at the steady stream of visitors at their Connaught Place office. ``We have been getting between 5,000 and 7,000 visitors every day since the booking counters were set up last week for our Nehru Place and Connaught Place outlets combined,'' he says.

ANZ Grindlays, the official `preferred' financiers for the scheme are offering an `exclusive' finance scheme where the interest will be charged only on theactual number of days for which the booking finance facility is availed,'' says Vikas Gupta, sales consultant with the bank, ``We are charging an interest rate of 15.5 per cent for 45 days, but we will refund the balance if you are allotted or not allotted the Indica and will only charge the interest rate for the actual number of days for which their money has been with us,'' explains Gupta. In other words, after the allotment, which is being anticipated in the second week of February, one may get the balance for the remaining 25 days, given the refund comes in time from the Tatas. And therein lies the catch.

Most probably, after the first allotment on February 8, those who don't get the car will have to apply to the financiers who will in turn contact the Tatas, for the refund. Therefore, the 45-day clause may be too less in the final analysis.

``That is why it makes sense to book through the Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India (ICICI), where the interest rate and the booking amount areminimal ,'' claims Pushpesh Dwiwedi, a sales representative with PNR Capital Services, the booking agents for the bank. ``We have devised a simplified scheme where we are offering the bookings for all models except the deluxe one, for Rs 3,999. This is the cheapest booking in the market. If however, the person does not get an allotment, he can forget about the refund, since we are charging an interest rate of 14.3 per cent for a shorter period of 30 days,'' he explains. ICICI claims to have made over 100 bookings in three days at their Nehru Place counter itself.

An interesting sidelight of this survey is the high degree of confidence in credit card transactions. At the Citibank counter in Nehru Place, nine out of 10 customers have paid their booking amount through credit card, states A Rajeev, a direct sales representative for the bank. ``With us the credit card logic holds good -- the convenience of billing the booking amount on the card has struck a good note with our customers,'' saysRajeev.

Citibank is also charging an interest rate of 15.5 per cent on the booking amount for 45 days, after which there is no refund. ``All these offers are subject to getting the refund amount on time from Tata,'' says Rajan Mata, a customer, ``but this is a risk one has to take,'' he remarks.

The Housing Development and Finance Corporation (HDFC) is countering the USP of the ICICI about the lowest booking amount with a down-to-earth booking amount of just Rs 3,000. ``Our booking amount is the lowest in the market, with a clearly identified refund of Rs 1,250 on every model,'' offers Sanjeev Handa, its marketing team manager. They claim to have made between 3,000-4,000 bookings at their Connaught Place counter.

At the end of the day, with 24,000 bookings in four days and another 16,000 anticipated by the last day, only the fortunate will get to steer the indigenous engineering marvel.