Pantnagar looks like Plan B

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Kolkata, Aug 22: Tata Motors is yet to specify the delivery site for the Nano parts to be made by the original equipment manufacturers (OEM), with the main project nearing completion, according to sources among the vendors.

With barely two months left for the Nano’s scheduled rollout, this could indicate that the first cars may come out of Tata Motors’ plant at Pantnagar in Uttarakhand.

“We actually do not know whether the components will be delivered at Singur or Pantnagar,” said a spokesperson of a vendor. “We are ready to supply any one of the locations,” said the spokesperson, who did not want to be identified.

A Tata Motors spokesperson had earlier told FE that many vendors have also begun work on their sites adjoining the 650-acre main Tata Motors plant at Singur.

However, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee continues to insist that around 400 acres from the total of 997 acres acquired by the government in 2006 be returned as they belong to farmers who are not willing to move out. These farmers have not accepted their compensation cheques.

The government has been insisting that no land can be returned without jeopardising the entire project, but Mamata says the ancillaries can very well come up at nearby sites.

On Friday, group chairman Ratan Tata pointed out that “the vendors have made as much of a leap of faith in West Bengal as we have. Without the vendors having come there and been willing to locate themselves adjacent to us and to be a part of our plan, there may not have been a Nano plant in Calcutta, because the components would have had to come from other parts of India.”

He said the uniqueness of the Nano makes it imperative for the ancillaries to be at the same location.

“We wanted it to be a consolidated car company with its ancillary suppliers incorporated in the same location because logistic & transport costs are a major part of the component cost of any plant. We are trying to produce the car that has never been tried anywhere in world and at that kind of price,” he said.

According to sources, Tata Motors has engaged almost 60 vendors for its Rs 1 lakh car project, while OEMs—JBM Group, Caparo Engineering, Rucha Engineering and Rasandik

Engineering—will supply components accounting for almost 40% of the cost of the car.