Thaindian News

Kolkata, April 7 (IANS) The West Bengal government would construct factory on the piece of land in Singur which the Tata Motyors abandoned, the state’s Industry Minister Nirupam Sen said Tuesday.
“We will try to rope in some automobile company for Singur, but if we don’t succeed in that we will do some other industry over there,” Sen asserted during an interview on a private regional TV news channel.

He said keeping in view the present global economic downturn and its adverse effect on the automobile sector, it might not be possible to rope in any auto industry. In that case, the state government will establish some other company at that spot, he said.

Tata Motors’ least expensive car Nano was scheduled to roll out from Singur, 40 km from here in the state’s Hooghly district. But Singur had turned into a battleground for about two and a half years since May 2006 after the state government announced the Tata Nano project.

On Oct 3 last year, the company announced that it had scrapped its plans to bring out the small car, priced at Rs.100,000 from the facility at Singur. The plant was shifted to Sanand in Gujarat.

Sen said people of the state have understood the negative impact of Tata Motors’ pulling out of the state and “people have now become more industrialisation friendly”.

However, Sen showed confidence when he said: “Though the Singur and Nandigram episodes have lowered the impression about the state in the eyes of the people of other states and people in overseas countries, it could not do any major harm to the state’s image. The state is still getting investment proposals.”