Singur wants Tata Nano plant back, offers help

The local people of Singur in West Bengal have assured Indian automobile major Tata Motors of full cooperation for setting up a plant, prompting the industrial giant to consider meeting the representatives in this regard.

Tata Motors has indicated it will meet representatives of those who had given land for Tata's Nano manufacturing plant before the company withdrew from the state in 2009 following violent protests ;ed by the Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee.

They were seeking higher land price besides other demands from Tatas'.

"I can call on you during one of my visits to Kolkata," A S Puri, Tata Motors vice president (govt affairs and collaborations), said in his response on December 9.

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He was responding to a letter by president of the Singur Shilpa Vikash Unnayan Committee, Uddayan Das, apprising him of the locals' changed attitude towards Tata's enterprise.

Das had written to the Tata Motors on November 11, saying that the situation has undergone a change since then.

He had said that while the company's assessment that the situation at Singur was not favourable as yet for industrial activity was true, "this was correct to some extent till December 2009."

However, Das said, the situation had changed since then and the people of Singur would now support and cooperate for renewed industrial activity.

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"We never thought that in spite of completion of 85 per cent of total project work, you would take such a painful decision to close the (Nano) project," he wrote.

The response of Tatas' has kindled rehabilitation hopes among members of committee of land-losers formed by the CPI(M) after the exit of Tata Motors' Nano project from Singur in Hooghly district more than a year ago.

He said that the people of Singur wanted Tata Motors to do something on the acquired land, which could be a car project or something else and sought a meeting with the company to explain the current scenario there.