Tata Motors can go ahead with making the world’s cheapest car at a factory in eastern India after talks yielded a compromise ending violent protests against the plant, officials said on Sunday.
West Bengal state’s opposition Trinamool Congress party, which has been spearheading opposition to the plant, said it had reached a deal with the state government that would see some of the land for the nearly complete factory returned to displaced farmers.
Other farmers in the Singur area near Kolkata, the site of the factory set to mass produce the low-budget “Nano” car, would be given compensation — addressing their complaints that they were forcibly evicted — officials said.
“Tata Motors can now go ahead with its work at the plant,” senior Trinamool Congress official Kalyan Banerjee told reporters at a news conference marking the successful end of three days of tough talks.
“It’s a big victory of farmers in Singur,” opposition leader Mamata Banerjee said.
The plant in Singur is 90 percent complete, and Tata Motors — India’s largest vehicle maker — has said it aims to launch the Nano next month, in time for the annual Hindu festival season.
But Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata warned a week ago he would move the plant out of West Bengal if the demonstrations continued, even though Tata Motors has poured US$350 million into the project.
Scrapping the plant would have badly hit Tata’s finances, already under pressure from its US$2.3 billion acquisition of Jaguar and Land Rover earlier this year amid slowing domestic vehicle sales.
Protests have been going on for two years against the plant. Demonstrations worsened in the past few weeks, with protesters besieging the factory and threatening to kill workers.
West Bengal’s Marxist state government had energetically wooed Tata Motors, part of the tea-to-steel Tata Group, to set up the plant. It is hoping the factory could lead the way for the state’s industrial resurgence and create new jobs.
The state’s federally-appointed governor, Gopalkrishna Gandhi — a grandson of Mahatma Gandhi — eventually had to be called in to mediate to end the dispute.
“The government has taken the decision to respond to the demands of those farmers who have not received compensation,” Gandhi told reporters at the press conference.
“The government will try to give back maximum land within the project area, and the rest in adjacent area as soon as possible,” he said, adding the modalities of returning some of the land would be worked out over the next week.
Tata Motors, which did not take part in the talks, could not immediately be reached for comment.
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