A countrywide `customer meet', the first of its kind in the Indian automobile company, is going on and will continue till the third week of December 2000. The Tata Engineering team of senior company officials is branching out across the country meeting the Indica customers seeking direct feedback on their experience and improvements that can be incorporated. "We have completed customer meets in six cities and Pune is the seventh city we are meeting customers," says deputy general manager, passenger cars S Krishnan. Around 30 such meets will be organised by the company. The company could take around eight weeks for incorporating the changes which means an upgraded car with new features or a new variant could be out in the first quarter of year 2001. Before its launch, the Tata Indica received 1,15,000 bookings. As on date the company has sold 85,000 cars. The projection for 2000-2001 is 70,000 cars and in the first eight months the company has not yet reached the 50 per cent mark. The company is hoping onnumbers picking up in the last quarter when there is a surge in sales to meet the projected target. At present the company is holding inventory of seven to 10 days with average daily production being anything between 170 and 200.

Tata Engineering has already announced the closure of some of its facilities between November 17 and 22. The marketing team however is not worried with these developments. The Saffire Gold colour introduced few days ago has caused some excitement and November 2000 numbers could go up, says Mr Krishnan. The dealer network is being expanded from 73 to 85 while service centres are going up from 300 to 350 by March 2001.