KOLKATA: India’s Tata Motors threatened yesterday to pull production of the Nano, the world’s cheapest car, out of West Bengal state if violent protests continued against the plant. “It is for the people of West Bengal and Kolkata to decide whether we are unwanted or to accept us as a good corporate citizen,” Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata told reporters in the eastern state capital Kolkata. If the protests do not end at the Singur plant, “we will very reluctantly need to move,” Tata told reporters following the Tata Motors annual meeting.
“The move will be at great cost to Tata Motors and to shareholders (but) there is a concern about our people, a definite concern about not being wanted,” he said. The company has invested some $350 million in the project.
The Nano — which Ratan Tata conceived with the aim of getting Indians off their motorcycles and into safer cars — was unveiled with huge fanfare early this year at India’s premier automobile show in New Delhi. But since the sporty four-door, five-seater with its 623-cc engine was shown to industry acclaim, its ride has been anything but smooth.
There have been frequent, often violent, protests by activists angered by the state government’s acquisition of farmland for the project. There has also been strong political opposition.