Mahindra announced price hike by up to Rs 47,000 from April 1

Mumbai: Auto major Mahindra & Mahindra today announced an increase in prices of its passenger vehicles by Rs 5,500 to Rs 47,000, effective April 1, to offset excise duty hike in Budget 2016-17.

Prices of recently launched KUV100, however, have been hiked with immediate effect.

"Though the 1-4 per cent duty hikes are already effective, we have decided to pass on the price increases only from April 1. Prospective customers can still avail of our various passenger cars at the pre-Budget prices all through March.

"In absolute terms, prices will go up by Rs 5,500 to Rs 47,000, depending on the model and prevailing prices," Mahindra Chief Executive for passenger car business, Praveen Shah told PTI here today.

He, however, added that KUV100, launched mid-January will attract new prices with immediate effect. While the petrol model will be costlier by 1 per cent, the diesel model will be dearer by 2.5 per cent.

Following the Budget proposal to increase excise duty to the tune of 1-4 per cent and an additional cess, almost all the automakers led by market leader Maruti have increased retail prices to pass on the duty increases and protect bottomlines.

While Maruti Suzuki India hiked car prices by up to Rs 34,494 to offset impact of infrastructure cess, Hyundai, Tata Motors, Toyota, Honda Cars, Mercedes-Benz, GM India, BWM, Renault, Nissan, Honda, and Skoda among others have also announced price hikes depending on their ex-showroom prices in each state.

Their new prices vary from Rs 2,000 (Tata Motors) to Rs 5 lakh (Merc). Merc and Skoda had increased the prices in January as well.

When asked about the customer response to KUV100, Shah said it has been very good forcing the company to ramp up production by an additional 3,000 units.

The decision to increase output comes as there is a 8-10 weeks waiting period for the new car as the company has 27,000 pending orders.