Date:08/10/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/10/08/stories/2008100855211200.htm

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Land allocated at market price: Modi

Manas Dasgupta

GANDHINAGAR: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi said here on Tuesday land was allocated to Tata Motors for the Nano small car project “at the prevailing market price” in the area. The State government would quickly work out the cost of the land to be paid by the Tatas to the State exchequer.

The 1,100 acres in Chharodi and Charal villages, 25 km from Ahmedabad, was part of about 2,200 acres owned by the Gujarat Agricultural University for running a cattle farm and experimental crop cultivation and cattle breeding. The land was transferred overnight to the State government by the GAU and allocated to the Tatas.

Mr. Modi and Tata group chairman Ratan Tata were addressing journalists after the Tatas and the government signed an agreement for the Rs. 2,000-crore car project.

Evading any direct answer about the “concessions” given by the government for relocating the project, Mr. Tata said the deal was “better” than what he was offered by the West Bengal government. He did not say when the first Nano car would roll out of the new factory and what would be its final price, but said he would try to “keep very close” to the promise he had earlier made of putting the small car in the market by the end of the current year and keeping its price within Rs. 1 lakh.

Most of the equipment and the fixed assets developed in Singur could be shifted to Gujarat, but the time frame and the cost of the car could depend on how fast the project could be re-started at the new location.

He said that while awaiting the completion of the “mother plant” at Sanand, the Tatas would explore the possibility of manufacturing the Nano car at its existing facilities at Pune and Pantnagar and launch the car in the market in the last quarter of the current year as promised.

Mr. Tata said that to begin with, the plant at Sanand would produce about 2.50 lakhs Nano cars per annum.

Mr. Tata said effort would be made to accommodate all those who had taken specialised training and were provided jobs at the Singur plant in some Tata organisation depending on their willingness to shift.