By IANS,
Kolkata : Though Tata Motors has decided to move its Nano small car plant out of West Bengal, another major investment project of the company, an earth moving equipment factory at Kharagpur in West Midnapore, is going strong, a top district official said Monday.
Tata Motors, which announced the Kharagpur project in mid-2006 along with the Singur small car plant, set up a joint venture company with Japan’s Hitachi Construction Machinery Co Ltd to execute the project.
“The project is moving smoothly,” West Midnapore District Magistrate N.S. Nigam told IANS.
The new firm, Telco Construction Equipment Co Ltd (Telcon), will develop, manufacture and market construction equipment and allied services.
Tata Motors holds 60 percent stake in the joint venture while the rest is with Hitachi Construction.
Telcon officials said the company is hopeful that the first set of products would be rolled out next June.
Earlier, West Bengal Industrial Development Corp said it did not face any problem while acquiring 1,251 acres for the Telcon project. A substantial portion of the acquired land 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.
Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata Friday announced the Nano car project’s pullout from Singur, 40 km from here, due to continuing protests from the opposition and the row over land acquisition.