New Delhi: Taking an important step toward setting up its ambitious small car project at Singur, auto major Tata Motors on Friday signed the land lease agreement with West Bengal government in Kolkata.
The agreement was signed by Tata Motors Vice-President (Finance) R S Thakur and West Bengal Industry Secretary Sabyasachi Sen on behalf of the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC).
The lease agreement gave Tata Motors complete control of 997 acre of land at Singur to set up the plant.
The details of the agreement, however, were not available.
The location of the proposed plant, nearly 35 km from Kolkata, has already evoked much controversy in the state.
The main opposition, Trinamool Congress, launched an agitation to stop the plant being set up on agricultural land immediately after the government started the process of acquisition last year after the announcement of the Rs 1,000 crore project.
The government gave permission to Tata Motors to start work on the plant in early January, barely a week after after TC chief Mamata Banerjee called off her 25-day hunger strike against the plant at Singur.
The auto major has already started the work on the boundary wall and other groundwork amidst heavy security as opposition parties, mainly TC, have been repeatedly threatening to disrupt the work and uproot the temporary fencing around the acquired land.
The signing of the agreement comes two months after the state government gave Tata Motors 'permissive possession' of the controversial piece of land mainly to test the reaction of local farmers, who had been up in arms against the project and were rallying around the agitation by Trinamool Congress.
The permissive possession without the agreement entitled the would be lessee of the land to enter the premise and undertake preparatory work like putting up boundary wall and prepare the plant layout.
The state government was finally encouraged to sign the agreement today as the last two months witnessed a slowing down of the intensity of the agitation against the proposed plant at Singur.
The state government was yet to announce the terms under which the Tatas would be handed over the land despite repeated demands by the opposition, but it has said that around Rs 120 crore would be paid as compensation to farmers for acquisition of a total of 997.11 acre required for the plant.
The decision to set up the small car plant in West Bengal had been announced by Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata after the assembly election in the state last year and the company satisfied with the location of the land offered by the state after months of scouting around the country.
He had also announced the Rs 1 lakh small car would be on the streets in the second half of 2008, but the company has been maintaining that it would require at least 18 clear months to set up the plant and they should be handed over the land in January 2007.
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