Founded in Guwahati in 2022 by an IIM Kozhikode alumna, Palanquin Ecotales was built on the belief that every guest deserves courteous, professional service, and that a woman-led company from Northeast India could set the standard for what car rental looks like here.
Queen Bhardwaj, IIM Kozhikode alumna and founder of Palanquin Ecotales, started this company in July 2022 with a simple conviction that people travelling across Northeast India deserve to be treated with genuine care, not just as bookings to be processed.
She had seen firsthand how travel experiences in the region were shaped entirely by chance: whether the driver was in a good mood, whether the vehicle had been maintained, whether someone actually picked up the phone. She believed that with the right people, the right culture and the right systems behind them, a car rental company could offer something consistently better.
Palanquin Ecotales was founded as a women-led company with a promise at its centre of courteous, professional service backed by people who take their responsibility to every guest seriously. That promise is still what drives every booking, every trip and every hire we make.
Before adding vehicles, Palanquin Ecotales built the operating layer — written SOPs for drivers, a structured vendor onboarding process, a pricing framework and a bookings workflow. The v9 SOP, updated in June 2026, covers 8 sections, 4 annexures, 15 driver subsections and a 14-point pre-trip vehicle checklist. It is not a document that sits in a folder. It is the operating manual.
In 2024, we built our own Duty Management System — a proprietary platform covering trip booking, driver dispatch, live GPS tracking and digital duty slips. It is live at duty.thepalanquin.co.in and is used for every corporate trip we run.
These are not features we market. They are how we operate.
Corporate clients, from diverse fields of manufacturing, technology, FMCG, consumer durables and many others use us for ETS contracts, monthly retainers and MICE events. They get digital duty slips, GST invoicing and a dedicated account manager.
Individual guests, be they tourists, families, solo travellers exploring Northeast India, get a WhatsApp-based booking experience backed by the same trained drivers and written standards as our corporate operations. The two tracks do not overlap and neither is treated as secondary. Today, we operate more than 100 cars in the Northeast region.
We also added self-drive car rental in 2026 with 24 cars across hatchbacks, SUVs and MUVs, for guests who prefer to drive themselves.
Queen holds a BS in Chemistry, an MBA from Gauhati University and a one-year hybrid MBA in Strategy from IIM Kozhikode. She founded Palanquin Ecotales in 2022 after identifying a structural gap in how car rental companies in Northeast India were managed — not a gap in vehicles, but in systems, standards and accountability.
She manages B2B client relationships, corporate account strategy, technology decisions and the overall direction of the company. She is also the primary point of escalation for all corporate accounts and the author of the company's SOP framework.
Meet the Full Team →Common Questions
Yes. Palanquin Ecotales is a Guwahati-based car rental company offering both chauffeur-driven and self-drive vehicles. Chauffeur-driven rentals start from ₹1,900 per day for a sedan, and self-drive cars are available across hatchbacks, SUVs and MUVs. Bookings can be made via WhatsApp at +91 60037 47123 or through the website.
Yes. Airport transfers to and from Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport, Guwahati start from ₹1,000 per transfer. A trained chauffeur meets guests at the arrivals gate. Corporate and monthly retainer clients can arrange recurring airport transfers through a dedicated account manager.
Yes. Palanquin Ecotales launched self-drive car rental in 2026 with a fleet of 24 vehicles across hatchbacks (including Hyundai Exter, i20, Venue), SUVs (including XUV700, Tata Safari, Mahindra Thar) and MUVs (Innova Crysta, Kia Carens). Self-drive is available for guests who prefer to drive themselves around Guwahati or on outstation trips.
Yes. Palanquin Ecotales operates chauffeur-driven trips across all of Northeast India, including Kaziranga National Park, Shillong and Meghalaya (including Cherrapunji and Dawki), Majuli Island, Tawang and Arunachal Pradesh, and Nagaland. Holiday packages start from ₹2,500 per person and are fully customisable. Drivers are locally based and experienced on mountain and remote routes.
Yes. Palanquin Ecotales offers monthly car hiring starting from ₹30,000 per month, aimed at government departments and corporates. The company also runs full Employee Transportation System (ETS) contracts for corporate clients, including round-the-clock, multi-shift transport for manufacturing and FMCG plants. All corporate trips are logged through the company's own Duty Management System with digital duty slips, live GPS tracking, and GST-compliant invoicing.
The fastest way to book is via WhatsApp at +91 60037 47123 — a real team member responds, not a bot. Individual bookings are typically confirmed within 30 minutes. Corporate enquiries can be submitted through the Contact page, with proposals ready within 24 hours. Palanquin Ecotales does not use automated phone systems or chatbots for customer communication.
Yes. Palanquin Ecotales is rated 4.9 out of 5 stars on Google across more than 225 verified reviews, with several reviews specifically noting safety and comfort for solo and women travellers. All drivers are background-verified and trained on a written Standard Operating Procedure. Every trip is tracked live through the company's Duty Management System.
Palanquin Ecotales Private Limited was founded in July 2022 in Guwahati, Assam, by Queen Bhardwaj. The company's registered office is in Jayanagar, Guwahati, Assam 781022. It is a women-led company and is registered with the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) and incubated under StartUp Assam.
Palanquin Ecotales operates more than 100 vehicles across Northeast India, including Maruti Swift Dzire (sedan), Toyota Innova Crysta (MUV, 7-seater), Kia Carens (SUV, 6–7 seater), Force Urbania (13 and 17-seater vans), and Force Traveller (26-seater). The fleet covers everything from solo airport transfers to large group and corporate movements.