The Nano moves to Gujarat

The Nano has finally found its home 25 km from Ahmedabad, at Sanand. The capacity of the new plant is expected to be bigger than that of the Singur plant and the Tatas have set an extremely tight timeframe of around 12 months in which to commission it.While the Tatas’ decision to move from Singur to Sanand was formally announced at a joint news conference by Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and Tata in Gandhinangar on Tuesday, Tata said that he was extremely impressed with Modi’s seriousness of intent and the speed with which his government had moved to seal the deal.Tata Motors MD Ravi Kant said it took the Gujarat government just ten days to tie up all the loose ends—make the land ready for possession, get all clearances and approvals—and offer a final deal. Tata said they had decided to take up the offer late last evening, and he was here the next day formally to sign an MoU with the state government.The deal by Gujarat is just as good as the one offered by WB and, in some respects, better. As against the 1,000 acres on initial offer in West Bengal, Gujarat is offering 1,100 acres. This land is unencumbered and would be sold to Tata Motors at the prevailing market rate. Ravi Kant said the Sanand plant was being planned for a capacity of five lakh cars a year, up from the Singur plant’s proposed capacity of three lakh cars. Tata said, as promised, he was planning to meet the deadline of the last quarter of this year for launching the Nano, although the first cars would roll out of from Pantnagar in Uttarakhand and Pune. A visibly relieved Tata said that he was not coming to Gujarat merely to build a car plant but to contribute to the state as a responsible corporate citizen. He later announced that the Tatas would take up agriculture and marine biology research in the state as well as build an ITI near the Nano plant for training workers.Clearly, Bengal’s loss is Gujarat’s gain. Although Tata said he was sad to leave Singur, he seemed happy to have left behind the game of political brinkmanship started by Mamata Banerjee. There is a bad M and a good M and we have made the transition, he said in an obvious reference to Mamata and Modi.The Nano will roll out from erstwhile Anand Agriculture University cattle farm .The Mother plant will come up on 1,100 acres at Sanand and will roll out 2.5 lakh cars per annum to begin with. Capacity of the plant can be ramped up to 5 lakh cars per annum. 60 vendors will set up shop at vendor park. 10,000 people will be directly and indirectly employed .Will go on stream in 1 year’s time.The Land was sold to Tatas at Rs 1100/sq metre on staggered payment basis ,deferred payment of VAT over 5-7 years ,infrastructure worth Rs 100 crore, including roads, power, drainage, water, effluent treatment plant to be developed by GIDC .