In a meeting held with Mr. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, Hon’ble Chief Minister of West Bengal and Mr. Nirupam Sen, Minister in Charge, Department of Commerce & Industries, Mr. Ratan N. Tata, Chairman, Tata Sons & Tata Motors and Mr. Ravi Kant, Managing Director conveyed to the Chief Minister that in the interest of the project’s success and viability they have no option but to move the project out of the State of West Bengal. They also expressed their deep appreciation of the State Government’s efforts to facilitate and support the NANO Project.
The makers of the people car expressed their extreme anguish at the heightened level of agitation and hostility by the opposition parties led by Ms. Mamata Banerjee, resulting in a concern for the physical security of their staff, contractors and vendors. The opposing parties continued to demand a part of the land to be returned to the farmers by the Government, which would render the project unviable.
Tata Motors had constructed the plant over the past two years, despite continued agitation and hostility towards the Tata Group. Tata Motors had almost reached a start up position of the plant. However, the heighted hostility and agitation had caused the commissioning and start up phase to be suspended. The work had been suspended for an entire month on the
plant. Even though Tata Motors displayed patience and hoped that the situation would improve, the continued assault and intimation of staff the company made the hard decision of moving the project out of West Bengal.