U'khand Agriculture Minister rules out allocating farm land to Tata

Dehra Dun, Oct 4 (UNI) With Tata's moving its ambitious Nano project out of Singur and Pantnagar in Uttarakhand being one of the alternatives for producing the Rs one lakh 'people's' car, State Agriculture Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat said he strongly opposed allocation of farm land by the state government for the project.

'' Agricultural land should be used only for agricultural purposes,'' Mr Rawat said, expressing his disapproval against the proposed allocation of 50 acre of land from Pantnagar Agriculture University to Tata Motors. He cautioned that implementation of the proposal would result in a ''Singur-like'' episode.

The Uttarakhand government had offered to allocate 50 acre of land to Tata Motors for housing purposes during a meeting with senior executives of the company last month.

Senior officials of the state government have tried to leverage hard to convince the company to consider shifting facilities to Pantnagar, where it is already manufacturing its 'Ace' pickup vans.

Tata Motors is seeking 100 acre of land for housing purpose and has demanded that the lease rent for its 1000 acre industrial plot at Pantnagar be lowered per sq meter from the existing rate.

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