By IANS,
Kolkata : Two projects of the Tata Group, conceived at the same time, have met very different fates in West Bengal – one has perished before it could see the light of the day but the other is going strong.
Tata Motors’ small car project in Singur has got aborted before it could roll out first Nano this month. The other project, Telco Construction Equipment Company Limited (Telcon), at Kharagpur in West Midnapore is going smooth.
The group had announced the Nano and Telcon projects together in 2006.
Telcon is engaged in the business of development, manufacture and sale of construction equipment and allied services in which the company has a 60 percent holding with the balance held by Hitachi Construction Machinery Company Limited, Japan.
The company, building earth-moving equipment factory in Kharagpur, is hopeful the first set of products would roll out next June.
“The project is moving smoothly,” West Midnapore district magistrate N.S. Nigam told IANS.
Earlier the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation said it did not face any problem while acquiring 1,251 acres for this project.
A substantial portion of 1,251 acres is farmland. Land acquisition for the project started in mid-2006 coinciding with the Nano project land acquisition in Singur.
The main factory in the Telcon project will cover 562 acres and the rest will be covered by the vendors’ park.
The entire project is slated to be completed by 2012.
On the other hand, Tata Motors’ car project faced immense protest from the outset by the state’s main opposition party Trinamool Congress and farmers backed by it over acquisition of farmland in Singur, 40 km from here.
Eventually Oct 3, the firm pulled out the project from the state.