KOLKATA: An attempt was made by some persons in the early hours of Tuesday to set on fire a portion of the wire fencing at the site in Singur, where construction work for the car manufacturing plant of Tata Motors is in progress.

The miscreants hurled bombs and fled under the cover of darkness when challenged by policemen. No damage was caused to the fence, Inspector General of the Police (Law and Order) Raj Kanojia told The Hindu .

A group of persons had made a similar attempt on Sunday, a few hours after the commencement of construction work, and damaged a portion of the fence.

Prohibitory orders under Section 144 Cr.P.C. are in force in the area. Construction work is on amid a heavy deployment of policemen.

"Such incidents will not affect the progress of construction work at the site and will have no impact on the morale of the workers, who all belong to the area," the State's Director, Industries, M.V. Rao, said. " Local villagers are being engaged at the site, and there is no problem."

Asked whether such incidents could affect work at the site, M.B. Paralkar, senior general manager (Corporate Human Resources and Corporate Social Responsibility), Tata Motors, said from Mumbai: "The fact is that work is in progress. ... It is moving according to plan." He said the required security had been provided.

Presently, the work was confined to constructing a compound wall, which could take between six and seven weeks. Nearly 400 people were engaged at the site, according to Mr. Paralkar.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail