Tata Nano gets 2.03 lakh bookings

The Tata Nano received over 203,000 fully paid bookings amounting to nearly Rs 2,500 crore (Rs 25 billion), Tata Motors said on Monday.

The company said that 610,000 forms were purchased from the booking centres. Almost 70 per cent of the 203,000 bookings received were financed, while 30 per cent of the applicants booked in cash by paying fully.

About 4,000 cash bookings were made online through the Tata Nano web site. Among the three variants of the car, 20 per cent bookings are for the Nano Standard, 30 per cent for the Nano CX and the remaining 50 per cent for the top-end Nano LX, the company said in a statement.

The first 100,000 allottees from among the applicants will be chosen through a computerised random selection procedure, and the announcement will be made within 60 days of closure of the booking.

Deliveries will start in July 2009, and are expected to be completed in the last quarter of 2010, while all efforts would be made to ramp up production and deliver earlier.

Simultaneously, along with the announcement of the first 100,000 successful allottees, Tata Motors will also announce the allotment of those booking applicants who have expressed their interest in retaining their bookings with the company even if they do not form part of the first 100,000 allottees.

The retainees will earn an interest on their booking amount, effective from that date. The booking amounts of unsuccessful applicants who have not chosen to retain their booking amounts will be refunded at the same time.