It’s official: Tatas set to bid Singur goodbye

Frustrated with ''continued confrontation and agitation'' at the Singur site, Tata Motors on Tuesday moved to seriously act on Ratan Tata's threat to pull out the Nano project from West Bengal. A company statement said Tatas were ''evaluating alternate options'' and considering relocating the plant and machinery.

''Tata Motors has been constrained to suspend construction and commissioning work at the Nano plant in Singur in view of the continued confrontation and agitation at the site,'' the statement said. ''This decision was taken in order to ensure the safety of its employees and contract labour, who have continued to be violently obstructed from reporting to work,'' it said.

TOI had first reported on August 28 that the company had started work on a Plan B for the Nano project after Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee directed her partymen, joined by hundreds of cadres from fringe Left parties, to lay siege at the factory site to press for return of 400 acres of land to farmers.

While the Rs 1 lakh car may yet survive this upheaval, the Tata pullout could signal the end of the road for West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's ambitious industrial revival plan. Protests by ultra-Left activists and farmers over acquiring land in Nandigram turned into a bloodbath that led to the end of an SEZ worth several thousand crores by the Indonesian Salim Group. Bhattacharjee had hoped that saving the Rs 1,500-crore Nano project might alter his state's image of being hostile to industry.

On Tuesday, there was an acute realisation of this. ''It is a very unfortunate day. It is a very bad day for West Bengal,'' said the state's industry minister Nirupam Sen. ''The Tatas have communicated their decision to me after a meeting to review the ground situation at Singur,'' he said.

The Tata statement said, ''In view of the current situation, the company is evaluating alternate options for manufacturing the Nano car at other company facilities and a detailed plan to relocate the plant and machinery to an alternate site is under preparation.''

Last month, Ratan Tata had said he would rather pull out of Singur than expose his staff and machinery to attacks.