Kolkata, Dec 26 (IANS) The West Bengal government is in talks with Tata Motors for getting back the land leased to the automobile major for its Nano small car project in Hooghly district’s Singur, officials said Saturday.
“They have taken the land on lease from us for a specific project, but as it will not come up over there, we have to think of alternate projects on the plot,” state Chief Secretary Ashok Mohan Chakraborty told reporters at the state secretariat Writers’ Buildings.

Asked whether they have asked Tata Motors to return the land, he said: “Of course we will ask them to return the land. We are talking to them.”

Global auto major Tata Motors abandoned the 997.11 acres October last year, succumbing to the protest by peasants led by state’s principal opposition party Trinamool Congress who demanded return of 400 acres taken from “farmers unwilling to part with the land”.

Tata Motors planned to roll out world’s cheapest car Nano from the Singur site, but shifted it to Gujarat’s Sanand after the disturbances. However, the land is still in possession of the company.

Tata Sons chairman Ratan Tata earlier said if the state government pays compensation, the company was ready to return the land.

The railways and the state government have been engaged in an exchange of letters after the former evinced interest to construct a railway coach manufacturing unit on the land.