Sleepless Nights for Tata Nano

Recently, in a press conference, Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata announced to withdraw from Singur project, if the ongoing distress continues. With this announcement, the dream project has turned into a nightmare for the team members who worked diligently to make it a successful venture. Earlier, it came as a bit of a surprise when Ratan Tata introduced his plans to locate the people's car plant in West Bengal. The industry experts were of the opinion that Tata's plans to make Nano a showcase for the state would usher industrial progress in the otherwise investment-starved state. But, ever since the issue was put forth before the public, it became a topic of controversy among majority of political leaders and environment activists. That the project needs the eviction of already residing farmers from there had created much hype among the people. The question which raised several eyebrows was from where the farmers would then earn a living for themselves. And the Tatas had no answer. Soon, the matter was taken to the court and became more and more violent.

For the Tatas, the Nano is much more than merely a Rs1 lakh car. After all, the Nano upholds the reputation of the company and the failure of Singur project would result in the loss of huge amount invested by the company. Moreover, the move will irreversibly hamper the future industrialization of the state and could take it back to an age of industrial vacuum. In my viewpoint, industrialisation is crucial for the development of social infrastructure and the development of the state must not suffer at the hands of political differences. The withdrawal of Singur project would send wrong signals to the investors and will take back the state to 70's era when the state witnessed large scale immigration of its industrial units due to lack of investment opportunities prevailing there.

As per the latest updates, Tata Motors have decided to work out on a business plan so that the company is not 'financially hit' if Nano project is withdrawn from Singur. As per the current proposal, the company has informally announced that it will provide additional businesses to Nano vendors who had invested in the project. The additional business plan includes the expansion of market for company's upcoming cars like the Indica Vista. I think that this crucial decision is sure to allow the vendors to recover the portion of losses if the Singur project is withdrawn. Tata Motors has also requested its vendors not to create a hype as everything will soon be under control. However, I firmly believe that not all is going down well for the Tatas as well as the town of Singur, which was looking forward to its first signs of rapid industrialization. Let's see how the story unfolds. As for now, we can only ke[p our fingers crossed.