For Tata, Singur is history

Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata virtually severed all ties with Singur on Tuesday when he expressed conditional willingness to return to the Bengal government land acquired for the erstwhile Nano plant. He said the group did not have an investment plan for Singur at this point and was willing to return the land, provided it was compensated.

“By compensation I mean the investment we left behind at Singur in terms of sheds and other infrastructure,” Tata said after a meeting with state industry and commerce minister Nirupam Sen in Kolkata on Tuesday.

However, neither Tata nor Sen spelt out the quantum of compensation. “All that will be worked out later,” Sen said. Tata made it clear if there was an alternative industrial proposal for the land, the group will leave it. “We will not stand in the way of development in the state,” he said.

Tata Motors’ lease for the land expires in March 2010. Asked it the state government would extend it, Sen said, “We are neither taking extension nor termination of the lease at the moment.”

When pointed out that railway minister Mamata Banerjee wanted to set up a wagon manufacturing unit at Singur, Tata said, “It is not her land.”