Mobile Van Branding in Kolkata (2026): Rs.2,200 a Day, the October Puja Rate and What a 42 km Day Really Buys

Rs.2,200 a day buys a branded T-Shape van in Kolkata, Rs.2,800 an L-Shape box van and Rs.7,000 an LED display truck. That is the whole regular card on our live Kolkata mobile van page, and it is a one-part card: the page lists design, KMDA permits, monsoon-rated installation, GPS tracking and a daily Bengali-English photo report inside the day rate, with no separate fabrication line. Each day is a 42 km, 6 hour route, and go-live is 48 hours from artwork approval. In October the same three formats move to Rs.2,750, Rs.3,500 and Rs.8,750, a 25 percent Puja premium the page ties to October 1 to 15 routes, and pandal-circuit positions need 45 days of advance booking. Everything below is either quoted from that page, read on 1 November 2026, or our own arithmetic on it, labelled as such. Where the page is silent (minimum booking length, GST, how the 42 km is counted) we say so instead of filling the gap.

What does one van cost per day on the Kolkata card?

The Kolkata page publishes three formats and two price columns, regular and Puja. Unlike our Pune and Delhi cards, it shows no fabrication charge: the page says all rates include design, KMDA permits, monsoon-rated installation, GPS tracking and daily Bengali-English photo reports. Read that literally, a single T-Shape day is Rs.2,200 all in. The page does not state GST anywhere; most of our other cards say GST is extra, so ask for the with-GST figure in the written quote.

The per-hour and per-km figures are ours, dividing the day rate by the page's 6 hours and 42 km. They are useful for one thing: comparing a van against a format priced differently. They are not a promise that a shorter day costs less, because the page sells whole days only.

What does a Kolkata van cost by booking length?

Because there is no fabrication charge and no long-booking slab on the Kolkata page, cost rises in a straight line with days. That makes Kolkata the simplest of our van cards to budget, and it also means there is no 10-day cliff of the kind our Pune card has. The table multiplies the regular day rate out. Days that fall in October would be priced at the Puja column instead.

The page's own campaign examples check out against this maths, which is a good sign the card is coherent. Its Salt Lake example runs 4 L-Shape vans for 30 days at Rs.3,36,000, which is 4 times 30 times Rs.2,800. Its Howrah-Kolkata FMCG example runs 6 T-Shape vans for 45 days at Rs.5,94,000, which is 6 times 45 times Rs.2,200. Its jewellery example runs 3 LED trucks for 10 Puja days at Rs.2,62,500, which is 3 times 10 times Rs.8,750. We treat these as worked examples of the card, not as client results: the page gives goals for them, not outcomes.

The page also gives a starting suggestion in its expert section: a 30-day T-Shape on the EM Bypass for Rs.66,000. That matches the 30-day T-Shape cell above. The page does not publish a minimum booking length, so whether a single Rs.2,200 day is bookable on its own is a question for the quote.

How much does the Durga Puja premium add, and which October days does it cover?

The premium is exactly 25 percent on every format: Rs.550 more a day on a T-Shape, Rs.700 on an L-Shape and Rs.1,750 on an LED truck. Over the 15 days from October 1 to 15, our arithmetic puts the premium at Rs.8,250 for a T-Shape (Rs.41,250 against Rs.33,000), Rs.10,500 for an L-Shape (Rs.52,500 against Rs.42,000) and Rs.26,250 for an LED truck (Rs.1,31,250 against Rs.1,05,000).

One wording difference matters. The page's pricing section and FAQ say the premium applies to October 1 to 15 routes, while its pricing table labels the column simply "Puja Rate (Oct)". Durga Puja moves with the lunar calendar, so in some years the festival days fall partly after October 15. Ask the quote to state which dates carry the Puja rate for your booking, rather than assuming either reading.

Is the Puja Surge Package cheaper than the Puja rate, and by how much?

On the page, yes, by a lot, and that is the single most important thing to confirm before planning October 2027. The page advertises a Puja Surge Package of 3 LED trucks on the pandal circuit for 10 days at Rs.1,89,000, described as "save Rs.21,000". That saving is measured against the regular rate: 3 trucks times 10 days times Rs.7,000 is Rs.2,10,000, less 10 percent is Rs.1,89,000, or Rs.6,300 per truck per day.

The package and the campaign example describe the same thing: 3 LED trucks, 10 days, the pandal circuit. They differ by Rs.73,500. Either the package is genuinely priced below even the regular rate during the busiest fortnight of the year, or the package figure predates the Puja column. We are not going to guess which. A buyer should get the package price, its dates and its routes in writing before treating Rs.1,89,000 as the October number.

How does the Kolkata card compare with the Pune card at the same booking length?

Our Pune van page publishes a two-part card: one-time fabrication of Rs.8,000 (T-Shape), Rs.20,000 (L-Shape) and Rs.10,000 (LED truck), then Rs.3,000, Rs.3,500 and Rs.7,500 a day, falling to Rs.2,700, Rs.3,000 and Rs.7,000 from 10 days, GST extra. Kolkata publishes one number per format. Here is what the two cards produce, both read from our live pages.

The gap is widest on short bookings, because Pune's fabrication charge lands on day one, and narrowest on LED trucks over a month, where the day rates are nearly the same. This compares two published cards only. The Kolkata page also claims to be the lowest-cost Tier-1 metro and puts its rates 40 to 60 percent below other cities; we have not checked that against every city card and do not repeat it as a fact here.

Does a 42 km, 6 hour day fit the EM Bypass and the page's two time windows?

This is where a Kolkata van plan is won or lost, and the page's own numbers set the limits. Its signature corridor is the EM Bypass from Science City to the Basanti Highway: 21 km with no traffic signals, where the page says a van holds about 40 km/h and each pass gives about 35 minutes of continuous visibility. The daily route is 42 km.

• Our arithmetic: 42 km is exactly two 21 km passes. A van that runs the Bypass north and south has used its whole published distance in roughly 70 minutes of driving, with most of the 6 hours still unused.
• The page's Sector V morning window is 8:30 to 10 AM (1.5 hours) and its Gariahat-Ballygunge evening window is 4 to 8 PM (4 hours). Together that is 5.5 hours, inside the 6, but spread across 11.5 hours of the clock.
• So a single 6 hour day can serve either the morning office audience or the evening household audience comfortably. Serving both would need a split shift, and the page does not say whether a split shift is allowed or how positioning kilometres are counted.

The practical reading: use the Bypass as one leg of a day and spend the rest of the 6 hours parked or crawling where people stop, such as the page's Park Street, Howrah Bridge approach, Shyambazar and Sector V junctions, where it lists dwell estimates of 15 to 25 minutes. Ask the quote to state whether the 42 km includes the drive from the depot.

Which van format suits which of the page's five zones?

The page maps Kolkata into five KMDA zone groups and pairs formats with audiences. Putting the two together gives a starting point for a brief. The pairings are the page's; the arrangement into one table is ours.

Two notes on the zones. The page lists Howrah Bridge among its junctions but Howrah is a separate municipal corporation, so a route across the bridge should name who issues its permits; the page says KMDA and KMC permits are handled by us. And the page's language rule is simple: daily photo reports are bilingual, and the design team is Bengali-first.

What can a van still do before Kali Puja and Diwali on 8 November?

Most outdoor formats are out of reach a week before a festival. Boards and newspaper inserts need lead time we have written about elsewhere. A van is the exception on this card because the page promises go-live 48 hours from artwork approval. Counting from today, 1 November 2026, artwork approved by 5 November puts a van on the road for 7 and 8 November. November is outside the Puja column, so the regular rate applies: two T-Shape days are Rs.4,400, two L-Shape days Rs.5,600 and two LED truck days Rs.14,000, on our arithmetic.

That is a narrow use, not a campaign. It suits a showroom or a sweet shop that wants presence on the two evenings that matter, with the Gariahat and New Market shopping streets the obvious routes on the page's own zone list. Whether a two-day booking is accepted is a minimum-length question the page does not answer.

When must a 2027 Puja booking be made?

The page sets two booking rules: pandal-circuit positions for October 1 to 15 need 45 days of advance booking, and an LED truck rolling on Dashami immersion day needs to be locked 60 days out. Counting back from 1 October 2027, the 45-day rule gives 17 August 2027. The Dashami rule depends on the 2027 festival dates, so count 60 days back from Dashami once the panchang dates are fixed. The page also names Deshapriya Park and Ekdalia as the routes that sell first.

The page's other two calendar moments are the Kolkata International Book Fair in January and February, where it suggests LED vans on the Salt Lake approach roads for education and publishing brands, and Bengali New Year in April. Neither carries a published premium, so the regular column applies on the card as written.

What does the same money buy in other Kolkata formats?

A van is the lowest entry ticket on our Kolkata cards, because a day can be bought on its own (subject to the minimum-length question) while every other format has a quantity floor. The floors below come from our national cards, which the Kolkata pages carry; those cards state GST extra. The van-day equivalents are our arithmetic.

Day counts are rounded down to whole days. The comparison is about entry cost, not reach: 300 hoods are 300 moving surfaces every day, while one van is one surface. Our auto hood minimum is 300 autos, so a Kolkata auto campaign below Rs.1,95,000 is not bookable; at that budget the van or the back panel is the format that fits.

Which figures on the page should a buyer not plan on?

The Kolkata page carries a number of audience and market figures with no source attached. We do not use them to forecast results and suggest a buyer does not either. They include the Rs.8 to Rs.15 CPM and the "lowest Tier-1" claim, 4 crore Puja visitors, 40 percent of annual OOH value in the Puja window, a 70 percent Puja spending surge, 60 percent road-dependent commuters, 65,000 to 1,20,000 daily impressions per van rising to 8 to 12 lakh during Puja, rates 40 to 60 percent below other cities, and the junction vehicle and pedestrian counts. Separately, our older June 2026 Kolkata van post quoted Rs.2,800 for a T-Shape and Rs.8,000 to Rs.9,000 for an LED van, and the live card supersedes it.

What a buyer can plan on is the card itself, the 48-hour go-live, the 42 km and 6 hour day, the 45-day Puja rule and the GPS and photo reporting, because those are commitments, not estimates. If a campaign needs an impression forecast, ask for one built from GPS logs of a real route, labelled as an estimate.

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