Archives 2026

New Delhi, Feb 17: The two-day DDA Green Expo 2026 concluded yesterday at Baansera with a powerful consensus among policymakers, urban planners, climate experts, industry leaders and grassroots environmentalists that India’s cities must move beyond conventional growth models and embed ecology, resilience and sustainability at the core of urban development.

Held under the theme “Beyond Growth: Reimagining Urban Futures”, the Expo brought together a diverse range of voices to explore how nature-based infrastructure, climate-responsive design, public health integration, circular economy models and innovative financing can collectively shape the future of Indian cities.

The Expo opened with the inauguration ceremony and welcome address, as well as unveiling of the DDA Green Logo and Yearbook, by N. Saravana Kumar, Vice Chairman, Delhi Development Authority. This was followed by an impactful keynote address from Hon’ble Lieutenant Governor of Delhi and Chairman of the Delhi Development Authority, Vinai Kumar Saxena.

The inauguration was followed by the signing of 5 key Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with Delhi Technological University, Mathura-Vrindavan Development Authority, National Medicinal Plants Board, National School of Drama and WWF-India, aimed at strengthening research, ecological restoration, cultural engagement and citizen participation.

Across the two days, seven panel discussions addressed some of the most pressing urban challenges. These included Building Climate-Ready Cities Through Nature-Based Infrastructure, focusing on floodplains, wetlands and biodiversity corridors as essential urban systems; Responding to Urban Heat: Policy, Planning & Public Health, examining heat resilience as a recurring urban emergency; and Designing for Climate-Responsive Cities, which explored sustainable and energy-efficient urban design.

The conversation expanded into resource efficiency through Cross-Sector Collaboration for Urban Food Circularity, highlighting waste reduction and sustainable food systems, while Day Two opened with Development vs Conservation: Finding a Middle Path, addressing the balance between urban expansion and ecological protection. Financing sustainable cities took centre stage in Financing Green City – CSR & PPP for Sustainability, exploring green bonds, carbon markets and blended finance, before concluding with From Talk to Transformation, which focused on translating policy intent into on-ground implementation.

Complementing the panels were four masterclasses on Solar Innovations for Urban Infrastructure, Urban Gardening & Sponge City, Water Management Systems, and Carbon Sequestration, offering practical demonstrations of scalable climate solutions.

A special fireside chat titled Nature, Health and Behaviour Change: Healing Cities from the Ground Up featured environmentalist Swami Prem Parivartan (Peepul Baba) and Ramveer Tanwar, popularly known as the Pond Man of India, emphasising community-driven ecological restoration and individual responsibility in building resilient cities.

Throughout the Expo, experts consistently reinforced that ecological systems must be treated as core urban infrastructure. Discussions stressed the urgency of preserving water bodies, restoring floodplains, rethinking land-use planning, investing in climate finance and building institutional capacity to address escalating climate risks.

The closing session highlighted that collaboration across government, academia, industry and civil society is essential to move from pilot initiatives to large-scale, long-term urban transformation.

With strong participation from policymakers, researchers, corporates, students and citizens, the DDA Green Expo 2026 positioned itself as a landmark platform for shaping climate forward urban development in India, reinforcing Delhi Development Authority’s commitment to creating a greener, healthier and more resilient capital.

The DDA Green Expo 2026 has firmly positioned Delhi as a climate-forward urban laboratory, reinforcing that the future of Indian cities lies in aligning ecological integrity, economic progress and citizen participation into a unified, resilient development vision.

Bengaluru, Feb 17th:  Blue Machines AI and Cartesia today announced a strategic partnership to deliver India-first conversational AI solutions for Indian enterprises, with an initial focus on regulated sectors such as BFSI and healthcare.

As Indian enterprises shift from pilots to production-scale conversational AI, two priorities have become clear: the need for natural multilingual voice experiences that reflect India’s linguistic diversity and India-resident processing aligned with regulatory expectations. Together, Blue Machines and Cartesia deliver enterprise-grade intelligent voice agents that seamlessly understand intent, execute complex workflows, integrate with existing systems, and respond naturally with ultra-low latency across regional languages. By uniting state-of-the-art voice technology with advanced real-time orchestration capabilities – the partnership enables organizations to deploy scalable, context-aware voice solutions that drive operational efficiency and enhanced customer experiences.

India-resident data processing ensures compliance with regulatory, governance, and auditability requirements –  critical for enterprises operating in highly regulated sectors. Multilingual capabilities spanning Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Marathi enable enterprises to deliver culturally relevant and hyper localized interactions across customer care, onboarding, and collections workflows.

The partnership enables enterprises to deploy multichannel voice agents across telephony and digital platforms. Real-time speech generation and intelligent workflow execution minimize response times, enhance operational efficiency, and maintain consistent brand voice quality – even during high-volume interactions. Through this collaboration, customers gain access to Cartesia’s full suite of enterprise-grade offerings, including flexibility with on-premise or cloud-hosted deployment options. The companies have developed a jointly tested deployment architecture tailored for regulated environments, with attention to latency management, audio handling, interruption control, fallback behaviour, and operational governance. The solution emphasises production readiness, monitoring, and observability to ensure reliability at enterprise scale.

Blue Machines’ Voice AI stack manages the end-to-end call lifecycle – from telephony connectivity and real-time audio streaming to dialogue orchestration and integrations with CRM, banking systems, messaging platforms, and internal APIs. Cartesia’s conversational AI model infrastructure is the first to enable ultra-low-latency speech processing for Indian languages, hyper-realistic voice generation, and streaming responses that allow smooth conversational flow, even during interruptions.

Select Examples of Enterprise Applications and Measured Results

BFSI – Multilingual collections and service:
Banks can reduce collections operating costs by up to 45% while improving promise-to-pay conversion by 15-25% by deploying a collections voice agent. The agent engages customers in their preferred language, retrieves EMI and account details from backend systems, and provides immediate payment pathways – all within an India-resident processing environment that ensures regulatory compliance and eliminates manual follow-ups.

Healthcare – Appointment management and follow-ups:

Hospital networks can cut no-show rates by 25-40% and achieve 30-50% faster appointment confirmations by automating appointment confirmations, rescheduling, and patient reminders through low-latency, natural voice interactions. This frees staff to focus on high-value care delivery while maintaining governance standards for data processing of confidential patient information. Enterprise customer support – High-volume inbound queries

Telecom and utility providers can increase Tier 1 query automation rates by 60-80% and drive down call center costs by 30-50% while boosting CSAT scores. This is achieved by deploying voice agents that authenticate customers, execute workflows in real time, and resolve billing queries, service requests, and plan changes in regional languages.

Arjun Desai, Co-Founder of Cartesia, said, “Enterprises expect voice experiences that are fast, natural, and expressive, without compromising on control and reliability. Sonic 3 delivers ultra low latency, human quality speech across the top 9 Indic languages. We power millions of daily voice interactions for global customers including ServiceNow, Gupshup, and Magicbricks. We are thrilled to partner with Blue Machines and double down on our commitment to the Indian market through our new Bangalore office. As voice becomes the primary interface for Indian enterprises and consumers, we look forward to building that future alongside daring and innovative partners.”

Nirmit Parikh, Founder and CEO of Blue Machines AI, added, “For Indian enterprises, compliance and regional language support are foundational. This partnership enables organisations to deploy India-resident, multilingual Voice AI workflows with the performance, governance, and scale required for regulated industries.”

Looking ahead, the companies plan to expand support for additional Indian languages, introduce new enterprise workflows, and closely partner on evaluation and model improvements. The collaboration aims to improve customer satisfaction, increase deployment speed, and deliver measurable business impact for enterprises adopting Voice AI.

“As Gen AI rapidly becomes the front door for information, discovery, and decision-making, a brand’s ability to be visible, accurate, and credible in AI-driven answers is business-critical,” said Michael Brito, Zeno’s Head of Global Analytics. “Zeno’s work is always focused on the interplay of brand communications and corporate reputation. To help brands stay ahead, we’re applying AI in ways that help them both protect and promote their business in today’s increasingly noisy, high-stakes environment.”

• Track Brand Visibility: Monitor mentions across top AI platforms, identify which media outlets influence each model, and analyze frequency, placement, and share of voice.
• Understand What’s Driving Results: Uncover the keywords, prompts, and narratives shaping brand mentions, benchmark against competitors, and quickly connect AI answers back to owned and earned media.
• Monitor and Improve Reputation: Assess tone, sentiment, and narrative framing, flag inaccurate content, and detect reputational risks before they escalate.

“As generative AI reshapes how people seek information and form opinions, communications is entering a new era of influence and accountability. In a market like India where scale, speed, and digital adoption are unmatched — brands must actively manage how they show-up in AI-generated answers. GEOfluent gives communicators the intelligence they need to move from reactive reputation management to proactive influence in the age of generative search,” said Abhishek Gulyani, Managing Director of India and Head of Corporate Affairs for Asia Pacific at Zeno.

New Delhi, Feb 17: National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) today released FiMI (Finance Model for India), a domain-specific language model built for India’s payments ecosystem, at the India AI Impact Summit 2026. Developed in-house by NPCI, FiMI currently powers NPCI’s UPI Help Assistant and is designed to address limitations observed in general-purpose large language models when applied to high-scale, high-trust payment workflows.

FiMI has been built to natively understand the complexity of Indian payment systems, including UPI, covering transaction dispute handling, mandate lifecycle management, and regulatory and ecosystem queries. The model went through continuous pre-training and was further fine-tuned on Indian financial and synthetically generated payments data, enabling accurate reasoning, structured tool invocation, and robust multilingual support. This payments-native design allows FiMI to operate reliably in real-world, high-volume transaction environments where accuracy, consistency, and trust are critical.

FiMI is already deployed at a national scale through NPCI’s UPI Help Assistant launched as pilot initiative, an AI-powered conversational support system for UPI users. This assistant leverages an agentic AI framework that enables multi-step reasoning to respond to payment related queries, support grievance redressal, and assist with mandate management. The assistant currently supports English, Hindi, Telugu, and Bengali, with additional Indian languages planned to be introduced within the next 6 to 8 months to further expand accessibility.

Having successfully developed and validated FiMI in a production environment, NPCI has released a detailed technical paper on the arXiv platform outlining the data curation process, training methodology, and evaluation results. This publication reflects NPCI’s role as a public digital infrastructure institution and its commitment to advancing transparent, India-centric, and trustworthy AI for the payments ecosystem.

Through this technical publication, NPCI is sharing key learnings from building and operating AI systems at a national scale, contributing to broader research and enabling informed development of domain-specific AI systems for financial infrastructure.

Commenting on the announcement, Vishal Kanvaty, Chief Technology Officer, NPCI said, “FiMI reflects NPCI’s commitment in developing financial language models purpose-built for India’s payments ecosystem. Having successfully built and validated the model, we are now sharing our technical learnings through a detailed paper to contribute to responsible innovation, while strengthening trust, transparency, and collaboration across the ecosystem.”

Building on FiMI, NPCI is exploring next-generation model architectures, including Mixture-of-Experts, alongside the expansion of multilingual capabilities to cover a wider range of Indian languages. These efforts are currently in the research and experimentation phase and are focused on improving scalability, efficiency, and domain intelligence, while preserving the governance, reliability, and trust requirements essential for national-scale payment systems.

Mumbai, Feb 17: Sterlite Electric, a leading manufacturer of capital goods and a provider of system integration solutions, Resonia Ltd., a power transmission infrastructure development company and Serentica Renewables, a leading renewable energy provider in India have announced the appointment of Sumil Mathur as the Group Chief Financial Officer (Group CFO).

With nearly three decades of leadership experience, Sumil will drive the Group’s financial strategy, governance and capital framework, overseeing risk management and financial transformation to enable sustainable growth and long-term value creation across businesses.

Prior to joining the Group, Sumil served as Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer at EMAAR India Limited where he played a pivotal role in shaping and executing its post demerger strategy. His tenure was marked by strengthened financial and operational discipline, value creation through asset monetisation, and the development of scalable project pipelines aligned with long-term business objectives.

Commenting on the appointment, Pratik Agarwal, Managing Director, Sterlite Electric, and Chairman, Resonia Limited and Serentica Renewables, said, “We are pleased to welcome Sumil Mathur as Group CFO. His deep expertise across financial leadership, governance, and complex transformations will be invaluable as we scale our platforms and reinforce strong foundations to support our growth ambitions.”

Speaking on his appointment, Sumil Mathur said, “I am excited to join the Group at a time when it is playing a critical role in strengthening power infrastructure and accelerating India’s energy transition. I look forward to working closely with the leadership team to enhance financial resilience, enable strategic growth, and create long-term value for all stakeholders.”

Earlier in his career, Sumil has held senior leadership roles with leading organisations including HCL, Indus Towers, Airtel, and JCB, gaining extensive exposure across infrastructure, real estate, telecommunications, and manufacturing. His experience spans across large scale project execution, capital planning, and aligning financial frameworks with operational and strategic priorities.

New Delhi, Feb 17: Panasonic Life Solutions India (PLSIND), a leading diversified technology company, today announced the launch of Co.lab Studio, a strategic startup studio designed to co-create and integrate scalable lifestyle digital services with startups through Panasonic’s AI-powered connected living platform, ‘MirAIe’. The launch marks the next phase of Panasonic’s open innovation journey under IGNITION brand and a new model of engagement with India’s startup ecosystem.

Designed as a business-first incubation and integration program, Co.lab Studio focuses on translating startup innovation into deployable services, bundled offerings, and measurable business outcomes. The program is initially anchored to MirAIe, Panasonic’s AI and IoT-enabled connected living platform that brings appliances, devices, and home solutions into a single intelligent ecosystem, enabling smarter and more personalized consumer experiences.

To operationalize this model, Panasonic has partnered with LINK Innovation as the program’s operating partner. The two organizations will work closely to translate business priorities into startup sourcing, collaborations, pilot execution, and platform integration. Panasonic retains full strategic, platform, and branding ownership of the program under IGNITION, while leveraging LINK Innovation’s expertise in moving enterprise pilots toward deployment.

Speaking on the launch, Mr. Hiroshi Saijo, Head of Panasonic Go, Panasonic Holdings Corporation, said, “At Panasonic Go*, one of our missions is to empower people with more choices and an enriched quality of life. This Startup Program, Co.Lab in India is a bold step toward turning that mission into reality. By combining the dynamism of India’s startup ecosystem with Panasonic’s deep technological and business strengths, we will create new forms of value that reach people faster and more impactfully than ever before. Our ambition goes far beyond experimentation. We are building real businesses, solutions that enable people to shape their own lives with greater freedom and possibility. From India to Asia and the world, Panasonic Go will continue driving forward a future filled with diverse options and meaningful innovation.”

Mr. Manish Misra, Chief Innovation Officer, India Innovation Centre (IIC), PLSIND, added, “Panasonic India Innovation Centre was established to solve social and global challenges through technology-led innovation, and MirAIe is one such platform shaping the future of connected living. With Panasonic Go, we are strengthening this ecosystem further through Co.lab Studio by extending our open innovation approach to collaborate with India’s vibrant startup ecosystem to revolutionise peoples’ lives and future lifestyle. Together with Panasonic Go and our program partner LINK Innovation, we aim to co-create scalable solutions and services that address future lifestyle needs while driving sustainability and wellness.” 

Ms. Souad Tenfiche, CEO, LINK Innovation, said, “Co.lab Studio is exciting because it makes co-creation repeatable, grounded in India’s strength: a fast-moving startup ecosystem, strong product and engineering talent, and a market where new solutions can scale quickly. Panasonic brings something equally valuable: a long tradition of trusted quality, Japanese engineering discipline, and a track record of building products people rely on. Bringing these strengths together can help promising ideas become solutions that launch faster and earn customer trust. After ten years in India’s innovation landscape, LINK helps Panasonic work with the right startups, stay focused on business priorities, and deliver outcomes, not just pilots.”

Panasonic’s flagship IGNITION accelerator program is designed to identify high-potential startups for strategic collaboration and, where relevant, corporate venture engagement through a structured annual cycle. However, translating innovation into live business integration often requires a faster, more continuous mode of engagement with mature startups. Co.lab Studio has been established to address this need by enabling agile, outcome-driven collaboration focused on deployment rather than discovery. The program is purpose-built to work with startups where the emphasis is on delivering tangible business results, such as pilots, integrations, and scalable services.

*Panasonic Go is a transformative strategic growth initiative that represents Panasonic’s commitment to innovation in a Software-driven, AI-powered landscape.

Bengaluru, Feb 17th:  Aster Volunteers, the global CSR arm of Aster DM Healthcare, has expanded its community outreach footprint with the launch of two state-of-the-art Mobile Medical Units (MMUs) in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh and Anekal, Bengaluru, Karnataka. These additions mark the 70th and 71st units in the global fleet of Aster Volunteers Mobile Medical Services and is the 48^th and 49^th unit in India.

In Tirupati, the mobile medical unit was launched in collaboration with Aster Narayanadri Hospital and flagged off by Shri D.S. Venkateswar, I.A.S., Collector & District Magistrate, Tirupati District, in the presence of district officials and healthcare leaders. In Anekal, Bengaluru, Karnataka, the unit was launched in partnership with Centre for Integral Rural Welfare (CIRW), Jnana Jyothi, and flagged off by Rev. Fr Dionysius Vaz, SJ – Provincial Karnataka Jesuit Province, Rev. Fr Arvin Luis, SJ- PDD- Karnataka Jesuit Province and Rev. Fr. Shantaraj Thomas, SJ, Superior of Jnanajyothi, along with the leadership team from Aster DM Healthcare, including Vinod Chandrwal (Head ESG – CSR and Sustainability), Hari Prasad VK (Head of Internal Audit, Risk, & Compliance) and Kuldeep Pathak (Deputy General Manager – Human Resources).

Speaking on the launch of two mobile units, Mr. T. J. Wilson, Executive Director, Aster DM Healthcare, said, “The launch of these Mobile Medical Units reflects our unwavering belief that quality healthcare must reach people where they are. In Tirupati and Anekal, our focus is on strengthening last-mile access through preventive screening, early diagnosis, and timely intervention delivered directly within communities. These units are not just vehicles of care, but platforms for dignity, equity, and sustained impact. Through strong local partnerships and digital integration, we are building scalable outreach models that ensure geography and income never become barriers to good health.”

Both Mobile Medical Units are equipped with medical-grade interiors and clearly demarcated zones for registration, consultation, examination, and pharmacy. Designed to deliver safe and efficient care, the units feature proper ventilation and air conditioning, ramps for elderly and differently-abled patients, reliable power backup, clean water and handwashing facilities, and compliant medical waste disposal systems. Core safety systems including fire protection, emergency kits, and GPS-enabled communication further enhance operational readiness.

The mobile medical units are also equipped with basic diagnostic and digital point-of-care devices and support free primary consultations, non-communicable disease (NCD) screening, maternal and child health services, health education, and referrals for advanced care. They operate on integrated digital systems, including EMR and tablet-based registration linked to secure remote servers, patient follow-up tools, and impact reporting dashboards, ensuring continuity of care and measurable community impact.

Built on the principles of accessibility and affordability, Aster has consistently expanded its network into emerging towns and underserved communities, through Aster Volunteers and its medical services ensuring advanced medical care is within reach. Through these initiatives, Aster Volunteers aims to bridge persistent healthcare access gaps by delivering timely, preventive, and need-based medical services directly within underserved communities reaffirming its long-term commitment to equitable and inclusive healthcare delivery.

New Delhi, Feb 17th:In a significant step toward reimagining elderly care in urban India, the Hamari Dilli Elder Friendly survey has uncovered critical gaps in in elder care, with 86% of seniors lacking digital literacy training—exacerbating isolation and unmet needs amid India’s ageing crisis. Aligned with NITI Aayog’s call for digitized elder programs (Senior Care Reforms Position Paper, 2024), the findings echo the Longitudinal Ageing Study in India (LASI Wave-1, 2017-18) data, where 27% of elderly report unmet healthcare needs and 30% live alone or with spouse, highlighting the urgent need for inclusive, tech-enabled solutions.

The survey, conducted by Wellness Health & You (WHY) and KG Community Development Council (KGCDC) across three colonies covering 600 senior citizens, is now set to be adopted and implemented at scale by Pacific OneHealth, which will lead operational execution, digitisation, and impact monitoring.

At the survey launch, Dr Anil Goyal, MLA, Krishna Nagar, New Delhi, said, “This ‘Elders for Elders’ model—linking three seniors with one peer and fostering intergenerational support—reflects the spirit of Kutumb Prabodhan in a structured, professional framework. He emphasised that combining experience, youth engagement, and medical care can keep seniors productive. Urging citizens above 70 years to obtain their Ayushman card, he highlighted Delhi Government’s ₹10 lakh health assurance scheme, covering treatment across 180 empanelled hospitals linked to the National Health Authority, and expressed full support for the initiative.”

Dr G. S. Grewal, Former President, Delhi Medical Association; Director – Senior Care+ Programme, Pacific OneHealth, asserts, “The survey findings clearly show that longevity without quality of life is not success. Healthy living in advanced years depends on mobility, mental wellbeing, preventive screening, and now increasingly, digital inclusion. LASI data has already warned us of chronic disease burden and functional decline. What this Delhi survey adds is ground-level evidence that elders want structured engagement, not sympathy. Our approach at Pacific OneHealth is to blend community, clinical continuity, and digital support so that seniors live longer—and live better.”

Operating on a “For the Elders, By the Elders” philosophy, the Hamari Dilli Elder Friendly initiative has onboarded 12 senior associations, completed line listing of 60+ residents, and conducted 600 household assessments. Six buddy groups and intergenerational volunteers are active, alongside a fortnightly OPD in Siddhartha Extension. A Digital Elder Care Card, mobile app, and service rebates are underway. Pacific OneHealth will now digitise, expand, and scale the model while preserving its participatory ethos.

Dr Swadeep Srivastava, President & Co-founder, Pacific OneHealth, said, “India is ageing rapidly, but our systems are still designed around episodic treatment, not sustained elder wellbeing. This initiative provides a replicable, scalable framework rooted in community participation. Pacific OneHealth will lead implementation, strengthen digital integration, mobilise healthcare partnerships, and ensure measurable outcomes. Our objective is not merely service delivery, but building an ecosystem where elders become active custodians of their own health.”

The Hamari Dilli Elder Friendly survey mirrors national LASI findings, highlighting hypertension (45%), diabetes (11%), functional decline, depression, unmet healthcare needs, and weak social security among seniors. It flags severe digital illiteracy locally, echoing NITI Aayog’s call for digitised elder training. Without digital empowerment, elderly risk exclusion from healthcare, financial protection, and social participation.

Mr. J. S. Marwaha, Secretary, Federation of Senior Citizens (EOK-4), asserts, “I say this with conviction—when one’s identity is alive, one’s joy is alive. If identity fades, life becomes mere survival. Seniors must maintain their vitality, their tempo. This initiative gives elders that platform—to remain active, connected, and purposeful rather than dependent.”

With India’s elderly population projected to double in the coming decades, initiatives like Hamari Dilli Elder Friendly could define the next chapter of urban ageing policy—where data meets dignity and community becomes care. Experts believe this participatory, community-driven approach offers a scalable blueprint for elder care across urban India.

Launched at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, under the HEAL OneHealth Connect Series, the initiative marks a paradigm shift—empowering elders as active participants who design and direct their own care with dignity and agency.

Inspired by the charm of evening elegance and the timeless artistry of fine leather, LANGUAGE presents its latest women’s footwear collection — where every design captures the essence of celebration, sophistication, and effortless style. Each pair is thoughtfully handcrafted, balancing modern grace with enduring comfort for moments that call for confidence and charm.

The collection brings together versatile designs that elevate every occasion. The Flora Pumps, with their smooth finish, sculpted block heel, and metallic toe accent, add refined sparkle to both day and night ensembles. The Clarisse Slingbacks, featuring a delicate bow and a pointed silhouette, exude classic femininity, perfect for evenings filled with grace and allure. Completing the edit, the Marcella Sandals showcase sleek multi-strap detailing that transitions seamlessly from elegant brunches to glamorous soirées — a blend of ease, poise, and contemporary flair.

Every pair in this collection reflects LANGUAGE commitment to craftsmanship and quiet luxury. Designed for women who embrace life’s finest moments with elegance and individuality, the collection invites you to make every step a statement of style and self-assurance.

The collection is now available at LANGUAGE stores in Chennai, Hyderabad, Navi Mumbai, Chandigarh, Indore, Ludhiana, Patiala, Bathinda, Sangrur, Barnala, Dubai, and through over 250 multi-brand retailers across the country.

Explore the complete LANGUAGE® range online at Language Shoes and Amazon.in for effortless shopping.

Jodhpur, Feb 17th: Ashok Leyland, the Indian flagship of the Hinduja Group and the country’s leading commercial vehicle manufacturer, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), with Rajasthan Gramin Bank, the largest bank in the state by number of branches, to enter into a strategic vehicle financing partnership for its customers. This MoU will enable both Ashok Leyland and Rajasthan Gramin Bank to offer customized financial solutions to the customers.

Mr. Viplav Shah, Head-LCV Business, Ashok Leyland, and Mr. Abhimanyu Charan, AGM, Rajasthan Gramin Bank signed the MoU in the presence of Mr. Mukesh Bhartiya, Chairman, Rajasthan Gramin Bank.  Under this partnership, Rajasthan Gramin Bank will be able to provide end-to-end financial solutions to the customers of Ashok Leyland. The partnership aims to enhance customer convenience by offering vehicle loans with flexible, easy-to-manage repayment options, tailored to meet individual needs and preferences.

Mr. Viplav Shah, Head-LCV Business, Ashok Leyland said, “Ashok Leyland is delighted to partner with Rajasthan Gramin Bank to provide attractive financing solutions to our customers. This strategic partnership will strengthen Ashok Leyland’s market position. Our products, featuring innovative technology, offer industry-leading total cost of ownership, ensuring maximum profitability for our customers. We remain committed to delivering exceptional customer experiences.”

Mr. Mukesh Bhartiya, Chairman, RGB, said, “Rajasthan Gramin Bank is pleased to partner with Ashok Leyland to offer seamless vehicle financing solutions. This association reflects our dedication to serving the diverse financial needs of commercial vehicle customers. We are confident that this collaboration will enable us to extend our reach and provide tailored financing options to support the growth of businesses in the commercial vehicle segment.” 

Ashok Leyland today offers a comprehensive range of trucks and buses to meet the full spectrum of commercial vehicle needs, from intercity light commercial vehicles to long-haul trucks and a wide variety of buses. Ashok Leyland’s vehicles ensure safe transport and driver-friendly options. As a pioneer in technological innovations within the truck and bus segment, Ashok Leyland is fully equipped with a range of buses powered by alternative fuels, dedicated to reducing pollution and promoting an eco-friendly transport system in India.