BankBazaar.com

Banking Online

After several years in the US, the urge to return home struck Arjun Shetty and his wife, Rati Rajkumar. Having decided to set up home in Chennai, in the early part of 2007, Arjun went shopping for a home loan. He found it really hard to get a good deal and had to go from bank to bank during their working hours, stand in line and fill reams of forms to even get a quote. "Once I got the quotes, I still found it hard to compare as banks quoted interest rates in different ways and they never spelled out the various fees associated with a home loan," says Arjun.

Additionally he learnt that banks didn’t usually start-off offering the best rate that he was eligible for. They’d usually try and charge a higher rate, and he had to bargain hard to get them to lower their rates. At the end of a week, despite wasting a lot of time researching loans, being a good bargainer and being reasonably knowledgeable about finance, he still wasn’t convinced that he was getting the best deal on the home loan.

"Many people I spoke to had similar experiences. Rati and I brainstormed on whether we could make this process significantly more convenient, and became convinced that it was possible," realised Arjun. He had worked at Amazon.com in Seattle and managed the Amazon.com Visa Card program. His brother Adhil was then working for Deloitte Consulting in New York. A convincing call from Arjun set Adhil's brain ticking and the next thing he did was to arrive in Chennai and plan a startup venture BankBazaar.com. Adhil's background of a Bachelor degree in Engineering from College of Engineering, Guindy, Anna University coupled with a Masters degree in International Relations with a specialisation in International Finance and Business from Columbia U had stood him in good stead while managing Deloitte Touche Tomahatsu's US East alliances; this came in handy when forming the start-up venture. "The idea was to start a dotcom company as a one-stop shopping solution for any kind of financial loans. BankBazaar.com was launched as the world's first online real-time loan disbursal platform for one-stop end-to-end solutions," says Adhil.

BankBazaar.com is the world's first neutral online marketplace that gives you instant customized rate quotes on loans and insurance products. You can instantly search for, compare and apply for loans, credit cards and insurance products on their site. Since they partner with India's leading financial institutions and insurance firms, you have to look in only one place to get a great deal.

"Our goal is to make it easy for everyone to get a great deal on a loan or an insurance product. On BankBazaar.com, you can easily compare the total costs of the loan offers made to you, and get access to unbiased customers' ratings of financial institutions. We want to make it easy for a person to have a lot of options, to take a well-informed decision when choosing which product to apply for and to do all this instantly! And best of all, BankBazaar.com's services are completely free," explains Adhil. The revenue comes in from the commission paid to them by banks after a loan has been sanctioned and disbursed. The client does not get charged for these services.

"The most fun thing about BankBazaar.com is that we work with extremely intelligent, passionate people who’ve excelled in their careers, but chose to take a leap of faith and join us because they believe in our vision. As we decided early on that we needed our team to comprise of the very best, the most difficult thing for us has been building our team as few people meet our bar. We’ve been successful at attracting some phenomenal people because we are truly passionate about what we do and because we dream big. My team comprises of people who worked for companies like Deloitte Consulting, Amazon.com, Microsoft, Trilogy, Kraft Foods and Capital One, that are considered amongst the best in the world," informs Adhil.

BankBazaar.com is invested by AVT Infotech and is funded by Angel Investors from Silicon Valley. The company is a first of its kind in this realm of facilitating bank loans, by offering multiple solutions on a real time basis from a wide range of banking and financial institutions. The core team is headed by Adhil Shetty, 30, CEO, Arjun Shetty, 29, COO, Rati Rajkumar, 28, CPO, Iype Isaac, 32, CTO, Vimal Kumar, 29, CIO, Gurjap Kohli, 29, VP and Noel Cedric, 29, Senior Marketing & Sales Manager who work with a total staff strength of 30 hardcore IT professionals, whose collective average age is less than 30.

The venture kickstarted in July 2007 with an investment of USD 1.2 million. During the first half of the current year, they have achieved a turnover of half a crore Rupees. "During this period, we have helped disburse on an average about 500 units of loans a month valued at approximately Rs. 20 crores. The largest loan disbursed was for Rs. 80 lakhs," says Adhil.

Surya Kompella of Bangalore is one such beneficiary. "My company Affiliated Computer Services Inc is into IT enabled services. I had logged into BankBazaar.com to apply for a personal loan of Rs. 2 lakhs for my marriage. I was able to obtain the best bargain from HDFC without having to visit numerous banks. I am thoroughly satisfied with the professionalism of their system and their method of operating," says Surya.

Sridhar Seshadri of Gurgaon is another satisfied customer. A senior person from a leading Internet company, he had availed of a personal loan through the facilities of BankBazaar.com. "I searched the Net for such services and from a list of three, I found the services and features of BankBazaar very user friendly. Within a day of logging in with all my details, I got a positive feedback from three banks from which I shortlisted one - HDFC. After the initial online interaction of filing all the required documents and details, my loan was sanctioned within 7 days. I must say that this experience has been quite encouraging and the brains behind an important financial service like BankBazaar.com needs applause," says Sridhar.

How is BankBazaar.com different? First of all, the process of registering itself is unique. Initially, you don't even have to divulge your name and telephone number. The user provides very basic information to determine his credit profile. The site will revert almost instantly with a few options of banks with their best offers. You can then compare the offers using their easy to use tools. After you have decided which bank or financial institution you want to go to, you can directly apply online. It is only at this stage that your name and contact number will be entered. Normally, similar online facilitators would pass on your contact to as many banks as possible and then you will be inundated with calls. And, mind you, all the facilities offered by BankBazaar.com is free to you. The facility allows you to upload all relevant documents and papers for the bank's verification. Only the personal identification has to be furnished in person. Once the loan is sanctioned, the user will have to make one visit to the bank with all the relevant supporting documents to sign the papers and avail of his loan.

"Competitors merely generate leads for banks i.e. they sell users’ contact details to the banks who then try to convert the lead. Our model adds marginal value and offers an end-to-end real-time solution for the customer," points out Adhil.BankBazaar.com offers a differentiated loan product of a one stop solution with the best online quotes offers from multiple banks. Differentiation is through complete loan completion process online and value add for the banks and customers.

How does this process benefit both the user and the bank? Says Adhil, "The customer needs personalised loan quotes as a simple process. The banks need to cut costs to maintain profitability. Data indicates that online lending in India has achieved critical mass. Banks are focussed on having efficient channels during this downturn." It eliminates the need for setting aside precious man hours and unwanted initial paperwork. "Loans at BankBazaar.com are at a net cheaper cost for the consumer than other options and we are compensated only by the banks and not by end user," says Adhil.

How good are these rates? "These are the lowest rates on offer from these banks. Please feel free to cross-check by directly calling the bank. Upon confirming that BankBazaar.com offers the lowest rates, do come back and apply because we also offer the fastest loan processing system in India," states Adhil.

END

The Dune Eco Village

What does actor-singer Marianne Faithfull, fashion designers Manish Arora and Christian Dior, actor Jean-Marc Barr, singer Scarlet Johansson, designer Lulu Guinness and actress Sharmila Tagore have in common? They have all been smitten by the natural and rustic charm of The Dune Eco Village. And, of course, by the charming and absolutely down-to-earth Frenchman Dimitri Klien, its founder-creator.

For the uninitiated, it will be great consolation to learn that the food you eat is all organically grown on the premises (and on Dimitri’s 100-acre organic farm in Kodaikanal). And, the bed that you lie on or the chairs that you sit on are all made from re-cycled wood. And, again, the various buildings within the 35-acre property are either made of re-cycled wood, palm leaf thatch or the walls (made of handmade bricks) are plastered with lime or mud. You can’t get eco friendlier than that!

That’s how Dimitri conceived The Dune in 2001. A once-high profile advertising professional who sold his company, FKGB to Omnicom and decided to settle down in Auroville, answered to his restless entrepreneurship calling and bought up 35 acres of coastal land about 15 kilometers from Pondicherry to make this dream come true. "It took me two years to decontaminate my system before I could think of venturing into something new," says Dimitri. What took him eventually three years to build on the barren sands on the East Coast was completely destroyed in the Tsunami of 2004 and Dimitri, with his never-say-die will power, built it all back to shipshape in no time.

Here, he put up one cottage after the other, each a unique dwelling by itself, and developed a eco-village that blends so much with nature that you really don’t miss the lack of cable television or telephones in the rooms. Spread widely over the beachfront terrain, these cottages are a unique blend of modern comfort (read: western) and the advantages of traditionalism (read: Indian). For instance, the thatched roof of one of the cottages makes the interior so cool even at the height of summer, that you don’t need a ceiling fan, let alone airconditioning. Beds enclosed in nets keep the omnipresent mosquitos away.

Some cottages offer the privacy of an independent house plus your own space with an open bedroom encircled by a high wall, semi-open bath, tiled roof with a courtyard in the centre to let rain or sun in. Moving around the ‘village’ is on bicycles – each cottage is provided with a minimum of two. Of course, for the lazy or elderly, Dimitri has an electric vehicle for use on request.

The Dune lives upto its name in the ‘eco’ category. Says Dimitri, “Most of the chairs in the restaurant are from a broken down ship. The tables are all made from old wood. The doors of all the cottages are recycled wood. All the waste from the kitchen is turned to compost for the garden. The used water from the cottages and kitchen is recycled for watering the garden and lawns. Hot water for the property is made using solar energy. We don’t provide hair dryers and instant water heaters in the rooms; they consume a lot of electricity. Unfortunately, being in the coastal, cyclone prone area, we cannot install a regular windmill. But we are exploring the possibility of putting up a low level one for pumping up water. We would love to go solar for all our electricity needs, but the costs involved are so prohibitively high, that it doesn’t compare with the electricity costs.”

Dimitri’s 100-acre farm in Kodaikanal grows vegetables and fruits, coffee and produces dairy products. A large part of the 35-acre Dune is set aside for a variety of produce for daily consumption in the resort. “Our entire requirement of rice comes from our own paddy fields. We do not use any chemical fertilisers or pesticides at The Dune or at Kodaikanal. We even have workshops for local farmers on the use of organic manure and fertilisers for their crops,” says Dimitri.

Dimitri has an eye for arts and crafts, a trait he picked up from his mother who was an expert restorer of art and artefacts. He came across a ‘mandap’ being dismantled and picked it up; this now serves as the reception area. Similarly, a temple was discarding their old chariot; Dimitri picked up the pieces and it now lies in a heap waiting for his in-house army of carpenters to lay their hand on. “Many a time, I come across unique things and blindly pick them up. Later, something will evolve around it and it will find a rightful place in The Dune. Many an item in most of the cottages is picked up like that," says Dimitri. Somewhere amidst all this is Dimitri's vintage Studebaker, a 1955 red and white 4-door version, one of the very, very few in India. "It has almost everything in its original state, although I picked it up in a junk condition from an Auroville resident who couldn't care less," points out Dimitri. He plans to showcase this in a prominent place in The Dune, as driving it around will pollute the air due to its high fuel consumption.

The Dune has a huge water tank at the height of a two-storey building. One day, when Dimitri was on top of that to inspect the tank, he was taken in by the view of the sea and the surroundings. The architect-designer in him quickly conjured up a spacious bedroom on the third floor with a mezzanine floor as a living room. The panoramic view through the vast sheet of glass, of the Bay of Bengal and the green cover surrounding it, is something that has to be experienced.

“The Tsunami destroyed every bit of the old Dune and filled the entire area with two feet of muck from the sea. It took me almost a year to clean up all the mess, re-plant the vegetation and build all these – 51 rooms, villas and bungalows that comprise of the Eco Village – to make it what it is today. The work is still not complete; the evolution continues and every morning I get up with another bright idea to implement, another concept to achieve. I want this to be a 100% eco-friendly place and help in a small way to save our eco system from destruction,” says Dimitri. Today, The Dune has rolling greens interspersed with sand dunes, swaying palm trees, scores of shrubs and plants, with winding pathways laid with gravel and mud - no asphalt is used anywhere.

Dimitri's efforts have not gone un-noticed. Le Official Voyage has voted The Dune as one of the 100 best beach hotels in the world and has declared their Spa as the best on earth! Harper's Bazaar has also found their Spa as the best on earth. Lonely Planet talks about The Dune's 'responsible tourism' while India Today has rated them as having the best honeymoon room in India. Geo Environment's poll in the tourism sector is currently on and The Dune Eco Village is the only entry from India.

Santa Snapshots

I have lived all my life in the North Pole. My travel experience is practically none except for a brief flight across the skies in my sleigh during Christmas, every December. So, last year, I decided that I will go to the South Pole for my Christmas holidays and spread some cheer around there. But, as most well-planned tour itineraries are prone to disasters, imagine my plight when my sleigh broke down and Rudolph nosedived into a strange land which showed on my Blackberry as Bharat. I hit the translate button and it said, India.

With my sleigh out of action and Rudolph down with a broken red nose, I was sitting by the roadside when a bullock cart came along at full gallop. “Hi, I am Rajnikanth. You are a familiar bloke; aren’t you Santanam something-or-the-other?”

“Hey, I am Santa Claus, buddy. And, I know you, too. Seen a movie clip… Murattu…something-or-the-other, on YouTube, in which you were travelling on a similar contraption. My vehicle has gone kaput and my reindeer has a broken nose. There lies the poor fellow. I have all these presents to deliver to the South Pole and it’s almost Christmas Eve,” said I.

“Here, Santanam, Santa, whatever, take my buggy and go about your chores. Just drop me off at the bazaar,” offered Rajnikanth.

So, I dropped off the gracious soul at the crowded bazaar and trundled away with a “hey and a ho and a ‘cluck-cluck’.”

The bullock and attached cart was no match to my air-travel friendly sleigh, but it was helpful in carrying my bag of goodies. Only, South Pole was out of question. Where was I? I switched on the GPS and my location said: Madras that is Chennai. Zooming in some more, I found that I was on the banks of a stinking waterway called Cooum. The emaciated bullock was ambling along when out of the blue a three-wheeled yellow and black monster swerved in front, a la Arnold in Terminator, and almost toppled my buggy.

To my surprise, the bullock reared up on its hind legs and took off into the air. Away I sailed away, leaving good ole Rudolph and the broken sleigh. Before I could say Ho Ho Ho, we were hovering over some very tall skyscrapers and swiftly heading downwards into a concrete jungle. My GPS said, Mumbai. Landing on Marine Drive, I noticed a film shoot taking place. A furiously gyrating and garishly dressed man stopped when the music seized and ambled across to my cart: “Oh Fish! What do we have here? Hey, I am King Khan. Aren’t you that Claus fella?”

Said I, “I know you, pal. I do watch MTV, you know. Got a gift for you, a fire extinguisher head gear. Every time you light up a cigarette, it will spray water on it.” Challenging me, he lit up one right under the nose of my bullock, startling the poor beast. He took off again into the murky, polluted skies hauling me and my presents to some distant city.

Being travel weary I dozed off while the bullock decided on his own course of direction. It finally decided that a chimney should be his final destination and headed for one in a seemingly village location, thatched roof and all. As he crashed through the smoking chimney and fell bang into the pot of boiling rice, I felt myself hurled into the fire…I screamed and woke up with a start…it was a dream, after all. The Christmas tree glowed in the corner of my room and beneath that I found a gift, all wrapped up and inviting. Merry Christmas to me!
By Nikhil Raghavan

Oh! Those ole times!

Pardon me, but I am going back in time. Like, fifty years ago, maybe. I am taking you to the late fifties and early sixties. A time when a telephone was a luxury, a car was a super luxury and an airconditioner, almost unheard of, if not costing the earth, moon and sky together.

Of course, communication was not too much of a problem – no one was in a tearing hurry, anyway. The snail mail, known in those days as the Indian Postal department was quite an efficient way of communication. Internally, an inland letter or postcard would take an average of a week between two cities. An Airmal letter to a distant shore, maybe a month.

The telephone instrument made of black bakelite and featuring rotating dial had the best ring tones ever. And, no hello tunes to mislead you - if you were being received or ignored. People talked loudly into the cup-like handset; people still talk loudly on the most sophisticated Blackberry working on a super efficient network. Back then, if you wanted to talk to a distantly located cousin, you either booked a trunk call and waited for hours or walked across to the Telegraph Office, stood in a serpentine queue to await your turn at the hot and humid booth for the whimsical operator to connect you through. SMS? Not even coined then! Those days, a telephone connection was even part of the patriarch’s will to be inherited by his son.

So was a car! Willed, I mean. There was a time when the head of the house would book a Fiat or an Ambassador car and would not live to see it, let alone travel in it. His children would enjoy his benevolence. Such was the waiting time for a car to be delivered. Cars were a part of the family wealth – most of the time they would never be sold till it fell apart due to rust or misuse. Consequently, there were hardly any second hand cars, then.

But then, those days travel was not too much of a trouble. Roads were good and less populated. Buses were clean and frequent. Cycles and rickshaws were aplenty. And, life was trudging along at a leisurely pace. The car was primarily for a family outing to the beach, cinema or a festival mela.

Back in those days the ozone layer was intact. I don’t think the word ‘ozone’ even existed. Tree lined roads and avenues abounded. The sun didn’t seem too keen to display its power on the hapless human race. And, houses had high ceilings, mostly made of wood rafters and clay tiles. All this helped in maintaining the temperature at a cooler level, aided by the lazily rotating ceiling fan. The wide blade, heavy duty fan would actually condition the air to keep the inside temperatures on an even keel.

Whatever happened to those days, I keep wondering? Today, even while driving or riding a bike, if the cellphone rings, there is no question of waiting till you reach your destination, to answer it. Who knows, the stock market may have crashed; so let me answer it!

Today, one can’t imagine a few hours without an airconditioner. The skin would seem to sizzle and fry at the slightest hint of the sun.

Today, a hundred metre trip to the provision store needs a scooter or bike. And, anything beyond that, the car has to be taken. A middle level manager in an MNC wouldn’t be seen dead on a cycle, even though he knows that cycling is good for fitness. But, he would gladly pedal away furiously at the local gym in airconditioned comfort.

But then, ‘today’ is a word that becomes ‘yesterday’ before you can even say Jack Robinson. So fast is the pace of life today. Communication and transportation are two key factors that drive life, today. And, at that fast pace, the heat builds up and you need proper airconditioning to stay cool.

So, pardon me for going back in time. I have also got used to the new age props for ‘today’s’ living needs.

Nikhil Raghavan / Precious Features Syndicate

The I Word

Recently, in a newspaper, I came across a cartoon strip in which there was an exchange of views between a NextGen youth and his quite old fashioned father. The lad was observing that, in the age of iPods and iPhones, the country’s national treasures should also be renamed. For instance, he says, Indian Gate should be called iGate! To this, the father reacted violently, saying that his son had no respect or knowledge of his and his country’s history and ancestry. The lad retorted that he did know his history very well, indeed. For, he knew of a past Prime Minister who went by the name of iGandhi. The strip ended with that, but I can well imagine what the next frame would have been.

In the present day life, the word ‘I’ has become synonymous with ‘Power’. It is not any more a reference to being conceited. In the ‘I, Me, Mine’ sequence, ‘I’ is merely the ‘Intelligent’ factor. Intelligent – that’s Me and what’s Mine, including the iPod and iPhone!

When two youngsters of the opposite sex make eye contact, it is actually indulging in that good ole fashioned eye-to-eye ‘fluttering-eyelashes’ contact. For, they could actually be oceans apart, chatting on Skype or scrapping on Facebook. The buzzword here is ‘iContact’ and that’s where the connection is always happening – on Internet, with a stress on ‘I’.

For the youth of today, the word ‘static’ doesn’t exist in his vocabulary, other than in n the context of electricity. His world is one of constantly evolving nature, dynamic and improvising. His world is in his hands – in his PDA, his tablet notebook, his Blackberry, his iPhone – all of them connected to a hundred, nay, a thousand similar users through the powerful Internet. Text messaging is second nature to him.

The NextGen youth struts his ‘I’ at everything and everybody that crosses his path – both physically and virtually. His ‘Itinerary’ for the day largely comprises of how many iTunes he can download, how many messages he can send and receive and how many friends he can make over the chat lines.

To help him along in his quest for being permanently mobile (not of the phone variety, here), even the auto industry has catered to his needs. While Hyundai already has the hugely popular i10 car on the roads, in a recent development, bus maker Ashok Leyland has come up with the iBus concept with every comfort of a well-equipped work spot.

Now, with all these advancements, will our good ole planet be eventually renamed iEarth?

Nikhil Raghavan / Precious Features Syndicate

We are a brave lot

Published in Top Five / Sriperumbudur News / April 2008
A few years ago, at an inaugural function, the then Union Minister Dayanidhi Maran, in quite an impromptu speech, mentioned that we Indians loved to break rules and undertake shortcuts, wherever possible. I will add that we Indians are actually daredevils and love to take on a challenge, even if it means breaking rules and traffic laws.

We can’t stand a One Way sign. Who do you think the cops are? We ask. So, we deliberately enter a One Way street from the wrong end and even curse the traffic coming from the right direction! If the traffic signal is on Red, we must stop a few feet beyond the Stop line. Who the heck put that line there and ask me to stop at it? We ask.

Traffic jams are quite frequent in most of our roads, these days. But, if you are a bike or scooter rider and tend to be caught at the rear end of a snaking line of vehicles, our impatience will not allow us to wait it out. We must be there at the front! This is where the pavement comes in handy – to hell with the pedestrians; after all, don’t they walk on the road? So, to pavement, takes the biker and he emerges triumphant at the beginning of the jam.

Zebra crossing? What’s that? Are we in a zoo, or something, we ask? Might is right, whether it is a two, three, four or six wheeled vehicle. More the wheels, more the might. The lowly pedestrian can wait, the vehicle owner thinks. After all, the man on the street is not burning any fuel, unlike the precious petrol or diesel. So, let him wait or get run over! One less human on the face of the earth is not going to make any big difference. It might even be better for the ozone layer protection.

Talking of pavements reminds me of….yes, pavements! Do they exist? Well, on some roads they do for a width of a foot or so, the road having been widened gradually over a period of time, to make room for the burgeoning vehicular traffic. On some roads, they are so wide that people have set up shops, restaurants and temporary houses. I think, the pavements should be taken over by the Housing Board and the residents taxed for occupying them permanently. So, you say, that most of them are shops and it is not the Housing Board, but the Tax Department that needs to take them over.

Maybe the Government should form a new corporation called Pavement Board and tax all those who set up shop or residence on the pavements. You say that this would only make their occupation more legal? I ask, are they ever going to vacate anyway? Don’t most of them have power connections and even ration cards? The Government spends a lot of the taxpayers’ money on periodically digging up and re-laying the pavements with granite or concrete slabs. By generating revenue from the pavement dwellers, honest taxpayer’s money can be channelled elsewhere – like into politicians pockets.

With increased vehicular population, I am sure the road taxes collected must be quite hefty. Road taxes? What roads? You ask. Well, whatever part of the road that is left over from digging trenches, manholes, potholes, fractures etc. Road taxes seem to be collected to pay those who periodically dig up roads, patch them up and re-dig! Have you ever wondered why there is so much of resistance from certain quarters for concretisation of roads? How will the human chain of beneficiaries make money from the periodic laying of roads? Someone once said that the vehicle manufacturers are in cahoots with the State Governments. Keep the roads as bad as possible, so that more vehicles will be bought, more tyres will be changed and more fuel will be consumed…the list will go on.

Talking of roads, have you ever wondered why you see many buildings on either side regularly sinking below the road height? Bad construction? Nope. Our method or road laying is to keep on laying new surfaces one on top of the other. By the time the next fifty years dawn, all our roads will equal the height of flyovers. We will be a city of skyways.

We Indians love pollution of every kind – noise, air, you name it, they are all there. Driving rules say that most of the time, keep both hands on the steering wheel. We do follow this to the ‘T’ – one hand on the wheel and the other permanently punching the horn. Mercifully, many years ago, the transport corporations banned the use of air horns in buses. So now the menacing drivers rev the engines to scare the small cars away from their path. The only chap who is not unduly perturbed by this show of might is the auto driver – he is a law unto himself. No lane discipline for him – he has got to reach his destination in the shortest and fastest route/time possible.

We love this chaos as much as we love ourselves and the attention that we can draw – even if it means breaking a law or bending a rule. We’re different, how else can we be a race apart from the degenerating West? Let the world go by and we will chart a course unique for our survival.

Nikhil Raghavan

The ‘I’ Factor

Story: Nikhil Raghavan / Original manuscript of published version in Commercial Vehicle magazine

This is the era of the Global Indian. Numerous Multi National Corporations across the world are being headed by Indians. Non Resident and Resident Indian businessmen are buying up companies around the world and creating mega entities out of them. In the automotive sector, while Indian companies (read: Tatas) are gunning for brands like Jaguar and land Rover, global luxury brands like Lexus, Hummer and Cadillac are targeting the ever-increasingly rich Indian.

Have you noticed how India is suddenly a focal point in so many different spheres – retail, automotive, mobile telephony, fashion labels, watches, et al? It is the ‘I’ factor – ‘I’ as in Indian. Remember, in automobile circles, the latest model to hit the Indian roads is the i10 from Hyundai. Now, along comes another ‘I’ factor – from Ashok Leyland Ltd. (ALL), nonetheless!

To be unveiled at this year’s Auto Expo (even as you read this) is the ‘iBus’ – a concept people transport vehicle touted as Tomorrow’s City Shuttle. It all began a year ago when the Young Executives Forum (YEF), a two-year-old activity of ALL, was given a brief by the top management – Be as radical as you want, as wild as you can let your imagination run, as free as the spirit in you – but, come up with a unique concept in vehicular transport, that works.

A group of 25 under-thirty fives drawn from across all departments of ALL put their heads together and came up with Project Concept Bus. Under a structured hierarchy of 10 mentors (senior executives), 15 experts and top management personnel, the 25 go-getters met regularly for a couple of months and bounced around ideas – some wacky, some outrageous, some unthinkable, some radical. Eventually, they formed four core groups to put some direction to their thinking processes and ideas – Opportunity Assessment (for market research and feedback), Design & Integration (for concepts), Testing & Validation (to try out the concepts) and Production Engineering (liaising with suppliers).

CV met with three representatives of the YEF, as it would have been difficult to get all the 25 under one roof at one time, to learn more about the iBus, the Concept Bus which the Forum came up with.

The ‘I’dea:

What does the ‘i’ denote? Says Bharath Rajagopalan, Deputy Manager, Mission Summit, ALL and member of the Opportunity Assessment and Design & Integration core team, “The letter stands for Indian, Intelligent and Innovation, the three important criteria we set for developing the iBus.” Venkat Subramanian, Deputy Manager, Marketing, ALL and member of the Opportunity Assessment core team explains further, “When we thought Indian, the factors included that the bus should be ideally suited to all Indian road and user conditions. Therefore the features should be user friendly and robust without compromising on comfort. The first thing we decided was that it should be a semi low floor so that the chassis doesn’t become too costly.” Pitched in Vivek Upadhyay, Senior Engineer, Advanced Engineering, ALL and Design & Integration core team member, “The design, features and facilities had to be innovative to make the iBus different and user friendly. We decided to incorporate Passenger Information System (PIS). Telematics with the use of a GPS tracking system, LCD screens and driver information systems were introduced. The Intelligent factor came in with extensive use of electronics for both the innovation as well as in the running of the bus itself.” The PIS displays dynamic route information based on the GPS location data. You get to know Estimated Time of Departure and Arrival, vehicle speed, weather conditions, etc.

The frequent brainstorming sessions of the team had one common goal – the design should impact the life of an emerging Indian. Says Bharath, “We wanted to design a city bus ideally meant for mass transportation needs. We sent out e-mails to almost 500 to 600 people to do a survey and found that the average requirement of most bus commuters was how to avoid sweating while traveling, beat traffic congestion and avoid delays. We also found that most commuters wanted to spend the long travel time constructively. So, when we thought of the iBus, we had to address all these factors.”

The ‘I’ design:

To start with, the iBus is built on semi low floor 635 mm chassis. For the first time a 152 KW, fuel-efficient common rail ‘eCORE’ engine, which is BS3 compliant, is installed as the power train. Along with power steering, a fatigue-free driver friendly unique feature being introduced for the first time is a no-clutch operation. Called an Automated Manual Transmission (AMT), the system is ideal for frequent start/stop intra city transportation. It combines the luxury of a fully automatic transmission with an ‘Indian’ cost. While the gear changes automatically, the driver has the option to shift to a required gear with the use of a joystick. Consequently, there are only brake and accelerator pedals on the floor.

An ‘intelligent’ electronic architecture is the heart of the iBus. The Central Body Control Unit interacts with all the on-board Electronic Control Units and provides diagnostic information to the driver. Additional features of the iBus include ABS, disc brakes, infrared camera and ultrasonic sensors mounted at the rear, which provides visual and audible alerts.

The front-end structure of the iBus is designed to be pedestrian-safe. The body structure is indigenously designed to absorb energy during impact. It is designed to meet European roll over safety standards (Indian Bus Body Code - AIS-031). The seating capacity is for 42 passengers.

For the passenger, the iBus has compartmentalized interiors. For the first time, you can choose between traveling Executive or Economy class in the same bus. There will be Internet on the move, airconditioning, reading lights and audio speakers.

“While conceiving the overall design of the iBus, we kept in mind four basic needs of the passenger – safety, comfort, economics and ecology. With this design, the first two aspects were taken care of for the passenger. For the vehicle operator, the economics would be better in comparison to normal buses because of the fuel-efficient engine, smoother drive and ergonomic design. The operator also has a revenue model in the LCD display which can be used for commercial displays,” says Vivek Upadhayay.

An ‘I’ to the future:

Now that the iBus has been exposed to the public gaze at the Auto Expo, it is left to the powers that be at Ashok Leyland to take it up for production for the larger benefit of the Indian passenger and his needs. The success of the concept and design is the result of a team effort and the encouragement given by a forward thinking management at Ashok Leyland, to the vast talent pool available within their young work force.

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