India Inc. calls Tata’s decision unfortunate

BY OUR CORRESPONDENT

New Delhi

Sept. 2: The India Inc. on Tuesday expressed dismay over Tata’s decision to look at alternate location for manufacturing the Nano car and suspend work at Singur.

The CII, director-general, Mr Chandrajit Banerjee, said that this decision of Tata comes after they have been pushed to the wall. "Tata have been waiting for a long and this decision has not come abruptly," said Mr Banerjee. He said that if Tatas ultimately pull out of Bengal it will be a huge loss for the state. "We are still hopeful that the situation would be resolved and short term political gains would be set aside in favour of overall development of the nation," said Mr Banerjee.

"Stoppage of work by the Tatas and a possible pull out is obviously unfortunate and we wish that the Singur dispute between Tatas and farmers had not reached this point," said the Ficci president, Mr Rajeev Chandrasekhar. "I believe it need not have reached such point, if there had been better and more open dialogue between the investors or the government and the local community earlier on," he added. Mr Chandrasekhar said that he hopes that this does not impact on the nano project timeline and "We look forward to the rollout of the nano even if from another Tata plant."

The Videocon chairman, Mr Venugopal Dhoot, said that it is just a bad luck of Tata’s that they ran into such a problem. But he said that it will not effect others who have made investments in West Bengal or are planning to do so. "It is in everybody’s interest that the situation in Singur comes to normal. The talks should be held quickly so that this situation is resolved," said Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers director-general, Mr Dilip Chenoy

Even earlier top industrialist had come out in the support of the Tata's Nano project in Singur. Reliance Industries Mukesh Ambani, Airtel chairman Sunil Mittal and Hero Corporate Service chairman Sunil Kant Munjal were among the many who had voiced their support to Tata's Singur plant.

..............ENDS...........