Now you don’t have to shell out Rs Excellent Pure sine wave 4000W with charger 15 lakh to purchase your favourite sedan or Rs 20-25 lakh for an SUV for your family, this festive season. With buyers reluctant to loosen their purse strings in the slowing down economy, car companies such as home-grown Mahindra Mahindra, Japanese giant Honda Cars and Korean carmaker Hyundai, have announced innovative schemes to sell their cars.Mahindra Mahindra, India’s biggest utility vehicle maker, has rolled out a subscription-based service for retail buyers of its cars. It has partnered with self-driving rental company Revv, which owns its fleet of vehicles. The company says the unique and flexible ownership experience for customers of Mahindra’s personal range of vehicles is an alternative to using a brand new car, making them forfeit the need to go for the purchase.

The company says this initiative has made the ownership experience of its vehicles more flexible, affordable and convenient. Customers can avail Mahindra vehicles with a subscription price starting from Rs 19,720 per month, inclusive of insurance and routine maintenance charges. The scheme charges a refundable security deposit of Rs 25,000.Buyers across Delhi (NCR), Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Chandigarh, and Ahmedabad can presently avail the scheme, while other cities should be able to do so soon. This way, for a period of one year to four years (in case of a new car), people can pick from the variety of vehicles on which the scheme is valid — KUV100, XUV500, XUV300, Scorpio, TUV300, Marazzo and Alturas G4.“The exciting part in this scheme is that it is flexible. One can come out of it after four months or one or two years and there is no penalty or liability to end it any time,” a spokesperson at Mahindra said, adding that it is not meant for longer-term usage.

After all, if one pays Rs 20,000 per month, they’ll end up paying Rs 9.6 lakh in four years but own nothing.The new subscription scheme comes with offers such as zero down payments, no road tax, zero risks on the resale value of the vehicle, and a fixed amount that includes routine maintenance costs. Most importantly, one has the option to change the vehicle model after a certain minimum subscription period.Similarly, Honda Cars has also launched its new car leasing services in association with Orix, one of India’s largest car leasing and rental companies. As a part of it, customers can avail leasing options for the company’s vehicles such as CR-V, Civic and City, for both corporate and individual customers.“Car leasing offers convenience, access to latest vehicles and enables customers to enjoy the perks of using a car without having to purchase it,” Rajesh Goel, Senior Vice President and Director, Sales and Marketing at Honda Cars India, explained.

For example, the company is offering the brand new Honda City, priced between Rs 12.08 lakh and Rs 13.08 lakh for a lease period of three, four and five years. If you take the option of lease without maintenance, the down payment is Rs 1.89 lakh and the monthly rental is Rs 25,103. At the end of the lease period, you can buy the car at `4.72 lakh. On the other hand, if you opt for lease with maintenance, there is no down payment but the monthly rental goes up to `30,000. This has no buyback option.“Car leasing is gaining popularity in India and we are delighted to associate with Orix to offer tailor-made solutions for anyone who wants to enjoy benefits of the modern ownership experience,” Goel said.

Hyundai has also partnered with Revv to provide their cars to customers on a subscription basis in Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Kolkata, Pune, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad. Revv will offer Hyundai cars either on a monthly or a yearly basis. The fee will differ for each option and car model as well. Customers will only be required to pay a flat monthly fee. Maintenance and insurance charges will be taken care of by Revv. Customers will also have the option of swapping between different models, based on their requirement.For instance, the total expenses for renting a Hyundai Santro in Pune for one month is `25,789. Out of this, `5,000 is a refundable security deposit. There is a `300 doorstep delivery and pickup fee also, which is included in the price.

In a new scheme to tackle the issue of decongestion of roads, the government is mulling the option of allowing registration of vehicles, only after production of parking space availability certificate to the authorities. Union minister Venkaiah Naidu, in an event this week, said that the government was in touch with the Surface Transport Ministry to make it mandatory for car buyers to provide proof of parking before buying a car. However, permanent parking slots in burgeoning cities as well as metropolitan ones are hard to come by, despite car owners having enough money to purchase and maintain a vehicle. We speak to celebrities, prominent town planners and architects, as well as members of law and order and ask them if this move is a difficult one to implement, and what could be a realistic and ideal way of managing the growing traffic on the streets.

‘Some kind of car restraint is necessary in Mumbai’V.K. PHATAK, Urban planner and former chief town planner with the MMRDAI think some kind of car restraint is necessary in a city like Mumbai. But this whole certificate business, I’m not sure if it can be effectively implemented. ‘The scheme is only going to affect the middle class’Sam Paul, Advocate, Madras High CourtOne of the biggest problems on Indian roads is car traffic. By asking people to show an allotted parking space proof through this scheme, it is only going to affect the middle class and lower middle class, who mostly park their cars on the roads even in metros. But for an upper middle class, or for those households that own more than one car and have enough parking spaces, the scheme won’t have any effects. If the desired effect is to have lesser traffic on our streets, it is better to increase the tax on a second car that a particular household purchases, than ask them to show a parking space certificate.

Where is the public transport?’Narasimham Vadlamani, Landscape architectIt is a horrible idea. The government should stop troubling citizens for everything and take up some responsibility on their own. Where is the public transport?In Hyderabad, proper transportation planning has never been done. Many public buses are bought and let loose on the roads; many don’t use them because they’re in such bad condition. Nobody knows when the metro will finally start functioning. The government has been promising every year, but in vain. There’s no capable transport minister and the government doesn’t take help from transport planners or consultants. Professionals and not ministers who are slacking should run the state. Banks with car loans are pampering every individual. In a country like Singapore, this wouldn’t happen. Not everyone is allowed to buy a car easily, and the public transport is top notch.

There is no space in the city and citizens cannot be blamed for that. The government is the one to be blamed because they have not planned anything well.‘The move will benefit metro cities’P.B. Sajan, ArchitectAs far as Kerala goes, there is no difficulty in parking cars at night in the confines of your home or in by lanes. What needs to be addressed is the issue of car parking during the daytime on roads. To seek a solution to parking woes in big cities — especially in existing high-rise multi–storied buildings — what needs to be ensured is that the space earmarked as parking be utilised as parking space itself and not for any other commercial or recreational use. The government needs to ensure that the designated parking spaces as per permit remains as parking space only. It is not the government’s duty to provide parking space for shop customers, but the responsibility of the shop owners themselves.

I think the option of allowing registration of vehicles after production of parking space availability certificate will benefit metro cities by bringing down parking of cars in the daytime on roads. Multi–level parking is a good option in many cases, which can benefit commercial and residential buildings.‘They need to provide connectivity’R.Srinivas, Town and Country PlannerTo implement this rule practically will be very difficult. We are comparing our situation with Japan and Singapore and they are highly populated countries, where the rules are very strict. The only solution that can be applied is a very effective public transport system. They need to provide connectivity and accessibility. They should propose alternatives based on car sales patterns and oil sales. One family shouldn’t be Wholesale pure sine wave inverter Manufacturers allowed to have more than one car. This would be easy to implement than the rule proposed by the government.