By Srian Obeyesekere
Ranjith Pandithage, Chairman and CEO of DIMO Plc, the authorised dealers for Tata vehicles in Sri Lanka, said that the cause of the recent fire to a Tata Nano taxi at Fort could not be determined. According to him, TATA’s car technicians who came from India to inspect the vehicle had stated that they could not attribute as to what had caused the fire to erupt to the passenger vehicle.
“The findings by the Indian experts who inspected the vehicle have stated that the cause is inconclusive. But they have, of course, stated that it is not the same cause as in the cases of the Nano cars that caught fire in India.,” the DIMO chairman told The Bottom Line last week.
He further commented that vehicles catching fire were nothing unusual. Even a luxury vehicle had caught fire in Narahenpita recently.
Pandithage added that sales of Tata Nano vehicles had not been affected as a result of the recent casualty.
“We have sold as many as 800 vehicles up to now,” he said adding that, in fact, an order had been placed for a further 100 from its Tata Nano agent in India.
“At the moment our Indian suppliers are not in a position to meet the supply demand because such is the demand for the Nano,” he said.
Tata Nano being used by the Budget Taxi Company ignited on September 2 in Sri Lanka’s Layden Nastian Mawatha around Fort area. There were no casualties, due to the fact that there were no persons in the Tata Nano at the time of the fire, and the car is now a complete write off.
Instances of Tata Nano bursting into flames have been reported in India from Gujarat, Lucknow, New Delhi and Mumbai. Sales figures for the Tata Nano have been hurting for a while now, with only 1,202 units being sold in India in August 2011.
In a year on year comparison, cumulative sales for the Tata Nano are pegged at 26,441 units for the year 2011 until August. This equates to a 17% reduction in sales figures as compared to the same period in 2010 wherein the company sold 31,882 Tata Nano units.
http://www.thebottomline.lk/2011/09/11/page2.html