Tata offered factory moves for world's cheapest car
Monday, 25 August 2008
NEW DELHI, Aug 24 (AFP): Indian states vied at the weekend to offer alternative sites to India's Tata Motors for assembling the world's cheapest car after the firm threatened to shift production due to violent protests.
The flurry of invitations came after India's top vehicle-maker warned Friday it would close the plant making the 2,500-dollar Nano in Marxist-ruled West Bengal state if farmers' demonstrations kept up.
Prosperous Punjab invited Tata to make the northern state its home for manufacturing the four-door Nano, promising "all possible facilities" for the mini-car.
Similarly, Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh pledged a "red carpet welcome" in the wealthy western state, while poverty-hit eastern Orissa state offered "all kinds of support."
But an apparently alarmed West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee, whose government energetically wooed the project, insisted late Saturday the row would be settled.
"State governments have offered land... but I'd like to assert the project will be a reality," he said. "Nobody can obstruct it."
A prototype of the Nano, which Tata conglomerate chairman Ratan Tata conceived with the aim of getting Indians off their motorcycles and into safer cars, was unveiled to huge acclaim in January.
But since then, the jelly-bean-shaped car's ride has been anything but smooth with frequent, often bloody, protests over the state government's acquisition of farmland for the project at Singur, near state capital Kolkata.
There has also been strong political opposition to the plant whose walls are plastered with warnings to workers to leave or "face fatal consequences."
"There's a sense of tension, violence.... It's not a conducive atmosphere," said Ratan Tata, whose company vaulted to world attention in March when it bought British motoring icons Jaguar and Land Rover for 2.3 billion dollars.
Tata Motors has already sunk 350 million dollars into the project under which the facility would be the mother plant supplying completely knocked down or CKD kits to satellite units across India.
But Ratan Tata said: "Whatever be the cost, we will move out if the situation so demands." Some commentators speculated he was seeking to frighten the government into taking a tougher stand against the protesters.
West Bengal's Marxists are keen to draw industry to create jobs in the impoverished state but the shift from agriculture has stirred deep tensions as many projects encroach on farmland.
Protests over land acquisition are widespread in India, reflecting a schism between business and farmers over industrial development.
The flurry of invitations came after India's top vehicle-maker warned Friday it would close the plant making the 2,500-dollar Nano in Marxist-ruled West Bengal state if farmers' demonstrations kept up.
Prosperous Punjab invited Tata to make the northern state its home for manufacturing the four-door Nano, promising "all possible facilities" for the mini-car.
Similarly, Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh pledged a "red carpet welcome" in the wealthy western state, while poverty-hit eastern Orissa state offered "all kinds of support."
But an apparently alarmed West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee, whose government energetically wooed the project, insisted late Saturday the row would be settled.
"State governments have offered land... but I'd like to assert the project will be a reality," he said. "Nobody can obstruct it."
A prototype of the Nano, which Tata conglomerate chairman Ratan Tata conceived with the aim of getting Indians off their motorcycles and into safer cars, was unveiled to huge acclaim in January.
But since then, the jelly-bean-shaped car's ride has been anything but smooth with frequent, often bloody, protests over the state government's acquisition of farmland for the project at Singur, near state capital Kolkata.
There has also been strong political opposition to the plant whose walls are plastered with warnings to workers to leave or "face fatal consequences."
"There's a sense of tension, violence.... It's not a conducive atmosphere," said Ratan Tata, whose company vaulted to world attention in March when it bought British motoring icons Jaguar and Land Rover for 2.3 billion dollars.
Tata Motors has already sunk 350 million dollars into the project under which the facility would be the mother plant supplying completely knocked down or CKD kits to satellite units across India.
But Ratan Tata said: "Whatever be the cost, we will move out if the situation so demands." Some commentators speculated he was seeking to frighten the government into taking a tougher stand against the protesters.
West Bengal's Marxists are keen to draw industry to create jobs in the impoverished state but the shift from agriculture has stirred deep tensions as many projects encroach on farmland.
Protests over land acquisition are widespread in India, reflecting a schism between business and farmers over industrial development.