Speculation rife over name of 'People's car'

New Delhi, Jan 10: Rumour mills are working overtime on the the name of Tata's Rs one lakh 'People's car' even as grapevine has it that it could be 'Jeh' or 'Atom'.

The car, which will be launched today, has already generated a storm in the automobile market, with the Tata's assuring to meet the safety and emission standards while pricing it just twice as the price of a bike and almost half the price of a Maruti 800 car. 'Jeh' has been taken from Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata's first three letters. In Persian, it means 'Conqueror of the world'. India's small car market accounts for over two-thirds of domestic sales in the country of 1.1 billion people.

The sales for small cars is expected to double by 2010 about two million units as the country is going through a surge in income and people looking to move up from motorcycles to cars. Tata Motors is the country's largest manufacturer of commercial vehicles and the second largest in passenger vehicles.

In fiscal 2007, the company sold a total of 589,428 vehicles.

UNI