Noting that the company's Nano plant in Singur, West Bengal, was expected to come into operation in the last quarter of 2008, Ratan Tata, in a letter to shareholders in the annual report for 2007-08, said that manufacturing facilities would be expanded to meet domestic and global demand in the future. "New variants of the Nano are also currently under development to meet the new environmental and fuel price challenges".
The distinction between "cheap" and "affordable" is a fine one, but no one understands this better than India's aspirational first-time car-owner, says Kanika Datta.
A new government plan aims to multiply the number of skill development centres and the number of people who get vocational training.
"I hope there's a bad 'M' and a good 'M'," Ratan Tata quipped shortly after Gujarat became a new home for his Nano small car project.
Car-maker sends another strongly-worded letter on vendor park.
'If the CPI-M cannot mend relations with Dr Manmohan Singh, it may find that Congress boss Sonia Gandhi is still willing to talk.'
If Tata pulls out now, it will be a huge blow to the state, and will be expensive for Tata too, as the company has irretrievable sunk cost in Singur of between Rs 350 crore (Rs 3.5 billion) and Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion). Among the will be Mamata Banerjee, who will find it hard to live down the ignominy of having deprived her state of a project that has made news the world over.
"If need be we will move and relocated the Nano project elsewhere. Relocation will cost both the Tatas and the West Bengal government, but I will not bring my employees here if they will be beaten up," the Tata Group chairman said.
The much-awaited policy for mandatory rehabilitation of land owners displaced by industrial projects and SEZs might get delayed with the matter being referred to a Group of Ministers.
Briefing the media after a three-hour tour at the project site, Ravi Kant said the trial production would commence in June-July and after a month or two, regular production would begin. "Commercial production, that is the real thing, will start in October, around the Durga Puja time," he said.
Mahasweta Devi has taken a break from writing and is engaged in social work these days.
"I cannot tell Ratan Tata to go back", the West Bengal chief minister said while speaking at the annual general meeting of Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Kolkata.
Tata said, "Please disassociate Tatas from Nandigram. We are not in Nandigram. We are in a place called Singur. The two places are contiguous to each other."
"This is not acceptable to us. Why should farmers at Singur suffer for the Tatas building shopping malls on their land?" Mamata, who had a meeting with the CPI(M) veteran Jyoti Basu recently, asked.
Charging Bhattacharya with running the state in a "dictatorial" manner, TC chief Mamta Banerjee said that no dialogue was possible unless the state government withdrew the notification for farmland acquisition.
Selected inner structural panels will be pressed and assembled by Caparo at a new facility in Singur, adjacent to the Tata Nano manufacturing plant in West Bengal.
In an important step towards setting up of Tata Motors' small car project at Singur, the West Bengal government signed the land lease agreement with the auto major on Friday.
Auto analysts suggest that Tata Motors may not be able to generate more than three to four per cent on net profit margins and five to six per cent on EBIDTA margins on the car. In addition, while production of the model is ramped up, sales will also have to rise in tandem.
NRI industrialist Swraj Paul-owned Caparo Group, a key vendor for Tata Motors' Nano project, is setting up a Rs 120-crore (Rs 1.2 billion) facility at Singur to supply sheet metal and vehicle frames for the world's cheapest car -- due for commercial launch later this year.
The first two wheeler factory in West Bengal was inaugurated by Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacherjee at Kamdebpur near Singur in Hooghly district
West Bengal, the chief minister said, has come a long way as far as industrial growth is concerned and now the responsibility lies on the people to take it to the next level.
On Wednesday, a police party, including DIB's Sadhu Chatterjee, went to the area for routine enquiry. But soon they were surrounded by a large mob, which assaulted them.
The affected community must share in the gains from the use of its land for development.
This was how a despondent Ratan Tata, who once said he will not pull out of Singur even at gun-point, on Friday summed up his group's "painful" decision to exit the Rs 1-lakh Nano car project from West Bengal.
While the West Bengal government is still grappling with the political opposition even after announcing a rehabilitation package to the land losers of Tata Motors' project in Singur
A Rashtrapati Bhavan spokesman said the President had talked to the chief minister two days ago also on the same issue.
Roy, however, said Banerjee was in good spirits and was continuing her fast. "Doctors are monitoring her condition. We are all concerned about her health," said Roy, a close aide of Banerjee.
Banerjee, who had already spurned requests by the chief minister to give up her fast, also refused medical assistance late on Sunday night when doctors from a state-run hospital came for a health check up of the opposition leader.
The police deployed in the area used microphones to warn villagers not to approach the area where fencing work was on.
TC chief Mmata Banerjee was stopped from going to Singur for a party programme against hand over of land to the Tatas.
When land was allotted to PSUs in the past, care was taken to ensure this was wasteland - it makes sense to do the same for private industry today.
Even as it comes to terms with the land acquisition controversy in Nandigram and Singur, the CPI(M)-led West Bengal government has handed over the order for possession of 4,300 acres
Here's a recap of events that occurred in India in the past 24 hours.
'The success of the bandh showed that the people had little confidence in the government. We hope that the government has been able to understand the message of the people,' Banerjee said.
She complained of breathlessness and chest pain early in the morning and was immediately rushed to the hospital, Roy said.
Nandigram has seen violent incidents over the issue of acquisition of land for a SEZ to be set up by Indonesia's Salim Group.
The Tata group's investments in setting up a global institute like the cancer hospital and the Tata Motors project would be the forums for other investments in the state, said Tata.
It epitomises a significant opportunity lost, just when the state was beginning to shed three decades of leftist inhibitions in favour of economic reform.
The project, which has attracted attention as much for the competitive pricing of the car as the political unrest over land acquisition for its factory 45 km from Kolkata, is now expected to be launched in the first half of 2008-09.
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