Date:30/08/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/08/30/stories/2008083061101200.htm

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Tata Motors suspends work

Special Correspondent

KOLKATA: Work at the Tata Motors project site at Singur was suspended on Friday, as employees and contract workers did not attend duty in view of “the overall situation that prevails there over the last few days,” a company spokesperson said.

On Thursday, protesters prevented the employees from leaving the compound after work. They could leave only late in the night after the police intervened.

The agitators, most of whom belonging to the Paschimbanga Khet Mazdoor Samity, a Trinamool Congress ally in the ongoing agitation, also threatened to stop workers from entering the site until 400 acres of land, which was “forcibly” acquired for the car project, was returned to the farmers.

The company spokesman said Tata Motors authorities were “assessing the situation.”

In normal circumstances, between 5,000 and 6,000 employees and workers, including those on contract, worked in three shifts, the spokesman said.

Expressing concern over the developments, Left Front Committee chairman Biman Bose said some foreign engineers might also have been prevented from leaving the project site on Thursday. “They are guests in our State. “It must have been a very bad experience for them.”

Mr. Bose said: “We do not want them [Tata Motors] to go elsewhere in search of an alternative site for their project.” That eventuality would affect employment prospects in a big way.

Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata threatened to pull out of Singur if violence continued to pose a threat to the employees and contractors.