The Hindu Business Line : Tatas pick Gujarat for Nano

Gandhinagar, Oct. 7 The Rs 1 lakh dream car ‘Nano’ of Mr Ratan Tata will now roll out from an integrated project near Sanand town in Ahmedabad district, from the same cattle farm for whose establishment during a severe famine in 1900 his great grandfather, Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, had donated Rs 1,000.

Tata Motors also plans to manufacture electric and CNG versions of Nano at Sanand, Mr Tata announced.

The company said it will explore the possibility of producing the Nano at its facilities in Pune and Pantnagar, and launch the car in the last quarter of this financial year. An automobile academy, ITI, and a driving school are also on the anvil at Sanand and the Tatas would also assist the authorities in research on agriculture and marine biology.

More than 60 ancillary units would come up at the Nano premises. “It is too premature to talk about the exact timeline for production to begin. A lot of work is to be done here,” Mr Tata said. The adjoining 1,100 acres of land, owned by the Anand Agriculture University, have been reverted to the State Government, which in turn handed this land to Tata Motors. The company will purchase the land “at current market prices.”

Mr Ravi Kant, Managing Director, Tata Motors, and Ms Gauri Kumar, Gujarat Industries Secretary, signed an agreement in the presence of the Chief Minister, Mr Narendra Modi, and Mr Ratan Tata.

Tata Motors had on October 3 announced its decision to pull out of Singur in West Bengal, following continued agitation against the project.

Mr Modi, who completed seven years as Chief Minister today, is scheduled to fly to Kolkata later this month to woo more investors to the State during a road-show in connection with the “Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors’ Summit” to be held in January 2009.

Close to port

Sanand is about 100 km from a new port being developed at Dholera in Ahmedabad district by a joint venture between the Adanis and the JK Group with an investment of Rs 3,000 crore.

With eight jetties, the all-weather port is scheduled to be completed in 2010-11. It has a 15-18 metres draft and a six-km-long water front which could be used by Tata Motors to transport cars via coastal transportation to South India to cut down costs, the way Maruti would be doing from Mundra in a couple of months, sources told Business Line here.

Better terms

At a joint media conference with the Chief Minister, Mr Tata said there would be no appreciable loss to the company for relocating its plant from Singur to Sanand. Speaking in Gujarati, he said “We belong to Gujarat and have come here, our company’s new home.” Without specifying the concessions and tax benefits given by the State Government, he said the agreement was “slightly better than what we had previously at Singur.” The company would retrieve all the equipment from Singur and hence would not have much losses this fiscal. “We are evaluating the relocation cost. Until yesterday, we did not even know where we would be relocating the project,” Mr Tata said.

Citing reasons for selecting Gujarat when other States were prepared to welcome the company, Mr Tata said the company was in a “great deal of urgency”, as it had lost valuable time . “Gujarat has a reputation of moving ahead with speed. The State Government provided the land quickly. Sanand is centrally located for our project.”

Mr Modi said Tata Motors’s entry into Gujarat is not just an investment by a company but a partnership between all sections of society. This would give a boost to the State’s economy and development by giving a fillip to the automobile industry.

“For me, it is a project of national spirit. The Tatas were being wooed by other States also but I did not want them to go there.” – (See also Page 2)