Ratan Tata meets Buddhadeb to discuss small car project

Kolkata, Feb 5 (UNI) In an unscheduled visit, Tata Group Chairman Ratan Tata met West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee here this evening to discuss the future of the small car project in the backdrop of the continuing violence over land acquisition.

Mr Tata, who was in the city for a few hours, met Mr Bhattacharjee and Industry Minister Nirupam Sen at the 'Sasthya Bhavan', the Health Ministry office in the Salt Lake area.

He was accompanied by Tata Sons Director R K Krishnakumar. They also discussed the proposed Tata Memorial Cancer Hospital at Rajarhat.

Talking to reporters, the Tata Group Chairman said the proposed small car project at Singur would be completed in time.

'' The programme we have taken up in West Bengal will be completed as per the schedule, '' he said.

The Tata Motors has set 2008 as its deadline for production of small cars in West Bengal.

To a question as to whether it would be possible to stick to the Rs one-lakh price tag for the small car, Mr Tata said, '' We are maintaining our stand. '' '' We are committed to the wellbeing and progress of the people of West Bengal. The proposed hospital will serve the people in the state and the region, '' he stated.

Mr Tata also expressed his sincere commitment to the economic uplift of the state and said, '' We believe this would benefit all sections of the society. '' Mr Tata's visit came the day Trinamool Congress supporters clashed with police at Kamarkundu in Hooghly district repeating yesterday's scenario when members of Krishi Jami Raksha Committee uprooted fencing poles around the acquired land in Singur, hurled bombs and threw stones at police prompting the administration to reimpose prohibitory orders in the area.

Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee, who announced a fresh set of agitational programmes to stall the project, vowed not to give farm land for industry.

A host of other Opposition parties, including the SUCI, Naxalite factions and even Jamait-E-Islami-I-Hind, a predominantly religious organisation had grouped together in opposing the car project.

However, asserting that his Government would not bow to any pressure, the Chief Minister had said recently that the Singur proejct was irreversible and the rest of West Bengal would follow the Singur way through industrialisation.

In today's meeting, the Chief Minister was understood to have assured Mr Tata that the Government was determined to go ahead with the project, while the latter expressed his satisfaction with the Government stand.

Official sources, however, said the main agenda of the meeting centred around setting up of a cancer hospital at Rajarhat, the foundation of which was laid by the Chief Minister last year.

To be set up by the Tata Group on the line of the Tata Institute of Cancer Research, the 150-bedded hospital would be of international standard offering latest facilities to patients.

'' The proposed cancer hospital will be of world standard, '' Mr Tata said.

UNI