Seeing the bright prospect of vehicle leasing and fleet management business in India, LeasePlan has organised a `fleet test' for 22 MNCs which includes, Lucent Technologies, Oracle, PricewaterhouseCooper (PwC), Smithkline Beecham, ABB, ABN Amro Bank, Group 4, Nestle, Siemens, IDLX, ICI, EI Dupont, IGU Life, Hilti, and British Telecom.

The two-day leisure trip from Delhi to Mandava in Rajasthan is slated for the last week of January. A fleet of cars will take the top level executives of about two dozen companies to the destination, LeasePlan Fleet Management's managing director Veerle Behets told The Financial Express.

The executives will test drive luxury cars including Ford Ikon 1.6, Opel Astra, Fiat Siena and Maruti Baleno for at least 60 km, she said."The purpose of the trip is to give them a feel of these cars and we will grade the cars based on their feedback. The exercise is conducted to give maximum value to our customers. This will also help them to identify cars for their fleet," she added.

LeasePlan will publish the grading in its proposed inhouse journal, "The Fleet Serve". The company is launching the monthly journal on January 1, 2001. "The evaluation of vehicles by the participants of fleet test will, however, be published in the second issue," Ms Behets said.

The present fleet of the company comprises 83 Santro, 47 Zen, 46 Esteem, 45 Ikon, 32 Accent, 17 Lancer, 13 Baleno, seven Qualis, six Opel Club, six Opel Astra and six Mercedes.

The wholly owned subsidiary of ABN Amro group, LeasePlan is investing over Rs 100 crore to expand its vehicle leasing and fleet management business in India in the next one year.

"Within a year of operation, the company has developed a fleet of 550 cars and 20 multi-utility vehicles for 64 companies in India and hopes to achieve our target of 2,000 vehicle by 2001," Ms Behets said adding that fleet management is increasingly becoming popular among corporates as they are able to outsource the service without investing a huge amount in buying vehicles.

Ms Behets said, the company is currently holding talks with an Indian company which requires a fleet of 600 cars. The company is managing a fleet of 100 vehicles for Lucent Technologies.

The other clients of the company includes names like Whirlpool, Carrier Aircon, Alcatel, Siemens, Europcar, Hilti, Eli Lilly, PwC, ABB Alstom, Group 4 and EI Dupont.