For the urban customer, Telco will come out with a four-door sedan version of its passenger car Indica, which could hit the roads towards mid-2000.

The automobile major is in the final stages of converting its light commercial vehicle 207 into a five-door passenger car, which will be pitched against the rural vehicles of Hindustan Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra.

"We are examining the option of launching a rural transport vehicle, which will be a modified version of our light commercial vehicle," Telco officials told The Financial Express.

With the rural economy on the upswing, companies with a strong network in this segment have been benefiting from higher volume sales. Although Hindustan Motors' RTV, launched in collaboration with Australian firm Oka, hasnot been able to make much headway, Telco is confident that its new product will be an instant hit with the rural customer.

"We began marketing Sumo, the Safari and Indica with zero market share. But now we are a strong player in each of these segments," defended Telco officials.

Although the company is unwilling to give out details about the rural vehicle, analysts say that the passenger variant of the LCV may require investments of over Rs 300 crore.

The Tata Estate, company officials say, will soon be relaunched in different forms for the semi-urban and rural customers. "The Estate is much sought-after for highway applications and rural terrains. As it was initially positioned as a top-end product with a lot of frills, we now plan to cut down on some of the frills and come out with relatively cheaper versions," company officials said.

Besides, the company is also looking at the option of repositioning the diesel-engine driven Estate as a private taxi, with supply of Padminis from PremierAutomobiles now having dwindled.

Telco is, meanwhile, gearing up to come out with three variants of the Indica. The sedan version, it is learnt, is slated for a launch next year, while a hatchback version will also be added to the product portfolio.

Company officials, however, chose to remain tightlipped on the Indica variants. "In this age of variants, we cannot openly talk of our proposed launches," they said.

The company is producing 200 Indicas every day and will shortly be increasing it to 350 daily to meet its delivery target of 60,000 cars by the end of the fiscal. "We plan to produce 5,000 cars next month and there is no reason to believe that we will not be able to meet our delivery targets," company officials said.

Although the passenger-car business will be in the red in the current fiscal, Telco is optimistic that the division will break-even next year, when output will increase to 75,000-90,000 cars.

"A capital-intensive business like automobiles cannot earn profits in the very firstyear of operations. We are, however, confident that the division will break-even next year," the officials said.