The UPA government's Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill could be the last nail in the coffin for industrialisation in West Bengal.
The project was expected to create employment in excess of 10,000 jobs among vendors and service providers in the vicinity of the plant. When Tata Motors announced the small car project in May 2006, it promised to employ 2,000 people directly initially.
Unitech had 40 per cent stake in NKID, which has been acquired by the Salim group and Universal Success. Sources said NKID was now a 50:50 partnership between these two; earlier, Salim had a 40 per cent stake and Universal had 20 per cent. Asked why Unitech quit NKID, the former's managing director, Ajay Chandra, said, "I have no comments on this."
Jatinder Mehra, chief executive officer, Essar Steel said, "I believe, in July, there will be some push in the market. In the Indian market, revival has already begun. Auto, fabrication, capital goods and white goods are doing very well." In the flat products segment, hot rolled coil prices have not seen a hike since September last year. Last month, long product, cold rolled and galvanised prices were raised.
The Left Front' economic policies may continue to haunt the UPA government.
Domestic producers of hot rolled steel, the intermediate that is used by automobile and consumer durables manufacturers, have emphatically ruled out the possibility of dropping prices ahead of the imposition of a safeguard duty on imports.
The British government has said it was "not prepared" to accept an announcement by Tata Steel and its European subsidiary, Corus, that there seemed no option but to indefinitely suspend operations at one of the latter's factories in north-east England, which means loss of around 2,000 jobs.
Nano vendors say if all-India bookings cross 500,000, Tata Motors may have to explore the option of having a satellite plant to its present mother factory at Sanand near Ahmedabad. Many who had taken up space at the vendor park in Singur, the centre of the main dispute with the give-us-our-land-back agitationists led by the opposition Trinamool Congress, are hanging on in this hope.
Five months after Tata Motors shifted its Nano plant to Gujarat, another Tata company has decided to move a project out of West Bengal. Tata Metaliks has scrapped its 500,000-tonne billet project, proposed to be built with an investment of Rs 700-800 crore
The issue has assumed serious proportions now. Suranjan Gupta, senior joint director, Engineering Export Promotion Council, said, many containers were being detained in Europe, to the extent that the steel ministry convened a meeting last week to discuss the matter. Europe accounts for 70 per cent of India's annual engineering exports of $33 billion.
In 2006, the Left Front won the Assembly elections in West Bengal on the basis of its pro-industrialisation campaign led by Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.
According to the Securities and Exchange Board of India regulations, if the shareholding crosses 15 per cent, it would trigger an open offer. Bhubaneshwar-based Orissa Sponge is understood to have iron ore and coal reserves of around 120 million tonnes each along with sponge iron and billet making plants.
Leading vendors of the Tata Motors' Nano project intend to set the ball rolling to return their land in the ancillary park area at Singur and said they aim to begin talks with the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation on the issue immediately.
Steel major Tata Steel plans to become a partner in Canada-based New Millennium Capital Corp's $4-billion KeMag property, having iron ore reserves in excess of two billion tonnes.
The survey would take 6-8 months and as part of the concession, Essar would be able to conduct exploratory mining for iron ore, manganese ore, chrome ore or any other available mineral. The area, that Essar has earmarked for exploration, measures 7,851.69 hectares and is one of the larger deposits. The mining concession was granted by departmento nacional de producao mineral, government of Brazil, in response to Essar's application.
Steel prices have come down by around 40 per cent since July this year. At present, prices of hot-rolled coil are ruling at Rs 30,000-32,000 a tonne. Ispat Industries director (finance) Anil Sureka said ex-factory prices of hot rolled coils were even lower.
The project at Salboni was welcomed by people and political parties alike, manifested by festoons welcoming Sajjan Jindal from all parties along the road leading to the site. Jindal complemented the mood at the ceremony with his farmer-friendly speech. "Industry and agriculture go hand-in-hand. My father, O P Jindal, was a farmer and he told all his sons that no wrong must be done to farmers," he said.
At least three steel companies-JSW Steel, Jindal Stainless and Bhushan Steel-have decided to wait for the financial storm to pass before they take up their expansion plans. Ministry may not achieve target to cross 100 MT output by 2012.
Singur divided between those who want Tata back and those who just want their land.
The protestors' claim was made after the much-anctipated first inspection of the factory site on Wednesday by a committee set up under the aegis of West Bengal Governor Gopal Krishna Gandhi to examine the ways of solving a controversy that had arisen after some farmers had refused compensation for the land acquired for the project.
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