Producing the world’s cheapest car is proving to be more expensive for Tata than it had anticipated.
In August tens of thousands of protesters in Singur surrounded the Tata Motors plant where the Nano car is being manufactured, claiming the land for the factory had been forcibly taken from local farmers.
Riot police were called in to protect the factory.
The protest was called by West Bengal opposition chief Mamata Banerjee, who had demanded that the land be returned to farmers.
An October deadline for the first US$2,500 Nano car to roll off the assembly line appeared to be in jeopardy.
Tata’s chairman, Ratan Tata, warned that he would move the plant out of the state if the demonstrations continued, even though his company has already invested US$350 million in the project.
West Bengal has witnessed increasing battles over land rights, with farmers complaining they have been forcibly removed from the land to make way for India’s rapidly expanding industrial developments.
In 2007, police killed 14 farmers in Nandigram village after protesters demonstrated against the seizure of land by the government to make space for a petrochemical hub.
Protests have taken place outside the Tata factory for more than two years.
