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A. Roy Chowdhury

Tough choice: Mr Ratan Tata, Chairman, Tata Group, addressing a press conference in Kolkata on Friday. –

Our Bureau

Kolkata, Aug. 22 Mr Ratan Tata, Chairman of the Tata Group of companies, made it clear here on Friday that Tata Motors would not hesitate to pull out of Singur, the location of the Rs 1 lakh Nano car project, if the employees of the company and the ancillary units continued to face violence and disturbance.

“We do not want to come to an area where, we perceive, we are unwanted,” Mr Tata observed while addressing newspersons at the end of Tata Tea Ltd’s annual general meeting here. “We are deeply concerned about the safety of our people and equipment”.

He had no doubt that the relocation of the factory would cost the company and its shareholders heavily. “But it will also hit hard West Bengal, where the Tatas decided to come at a time when there was hardly any development as this part of the country was ignored from the investment point of view,” he said.

“It is now for the people here to decide whether we are unwanted or whether we will be accepted as good corporate citizens that we are”.

Tata Motors, he pointed out, had so far invested about Rs 1,500 crore. But then it would be wrong to presume that the company would continue to be here even if the violence went unabated just because so much of money had already been invested. “We cannot operate a plant under police protection,” he said.

Regretting the perception in some quarters that the Tatas were here to exploit the State and its people, the Tata Group Chairman said, “We are extremely sensitive about the needs of the rural community and we believe in the balanced growth of rural and industrial development. In Singur, we have taken on lease the land offered to us and we have not come here to exploit any one.”. “Perhaps, many people do not want us to be here,” he said.

The Chairman pointed out that, after several years, the Tatas were making investments in West Bengal in several projects such as power, coking coal, metals and others. “We are also setting up a modern hospital here and it will be ready by March next year and, frankly, we do not want West Bengal to get characterised as a trouble spot in India,” he said, adding, “I am an optimist and I am an Indian first, and West Bengal is very much a part of India”.

In reply to a question, he said, “I believe that the land has been acquired legally and there is complete transparency. We are here to produce cars and it is for the State government to handle other issues”.

Reacting sharply to Mr Ratan Tata’s threat to exit Singur, Ms Mamata Banerjee, leader of West Bengal Trinamool Congress, the party that is spearheading an agitation demanding the return of 400 acres of land earmarked for ancillary units in Singur to farmers who have been evicted, said she was not responsible for the present situation and attributed the impasse to inept handling of the issues by the West Bengal Government.

Sticking to her stand, she emphasised that the owners of land taken forcibly for the small car project must get back their land and how it would be done was the State government’s business. “The State government’s rigid stand has created the deadlock, hence the tension and violence,” she said.

Mr Ratan Tata’s comments have made the Nano suppliers wary of their investments in the State. However, most of them have hinted that they already have capacity at their existing plants to support the launch of Nano from alternative destinations such as Pantnagar in Uttarakhand where Tata Motors has a manufacturing facility.

The Tata Motors stock closed at Rs 425.6, a gain of 1.83 per cent, over the previous day’s close on the BSE.

More Stories on : Cars | New Projects | Politics | West Bengal | Tata Motors Ltd

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