West Bengal today claimed that the world's cheapest wheels, Nano, will be made in Singur, although car maker Tata Motors had stomped out of the eastern Indian state in a huff last year.
"West Bengal lost the opportunity of being Nano's number one plant. However, Nano will definitely be made in West Bengal as the low-cost car needs at least four to five plants," the state's Principal Industry Secretary Sabyasachi Sen told PTI here.
He, however, did not state by when this would happen.
Tata Motors, which chose Sanand in Gujarat as the alternative site to manufacture the sub-USD 2,500 car Nano, still has its plant in Singur.
Company Chairman Ratan Tata, at the commercial launch of the people's car on March 23, had said that the factory shell was still intact in Singur - from where it quit over a land row fuelled by opposition Trinamool Congress party.
"Their plant (Tata's) in Singur is almost ready," Sen said while seeking to explain the events leading to Tata Motors exit from the state.
"Tata did not want to delay, it wanted to be in the market with the car before other small car makers entered the scene. Tatas also did not want any aggressive tactic to deal with the situation... They have a global reputation," said Sen, who is here to woo Malaysian auto component makers to set up shop in West Bengal.
Sen said Malaysian car maker proton had shown interest in selling its car in the Indian market and was keen to have joint venture partners there.
He claimed that the Nano was a "one off incident". The low cost car project had special characteristics, it was the first time that a issue of setting up industries on fertile land came up. It was a farmer-oriented issue where the state government felt that it had to be sorted out through discussions, Sen said.
The official felt that the agitation by the farmers would have tapered off but the car maker did not have the option of time to wait. "We were not the number one location but can be the number two maybe," he said optimistically.
He noted that since the Nano issue, the state had not faced any other protests of that kind, but admitted the Nano episode would be difficult to undo especially as the state hopes to turn itself into an automotive hub.
Sen said the state had USD 20 billion worth of projects in the pipeline and 25 per cent of them were currently under construction. "We have learnt our lesson from Singur, we do consensus building now," he said.
Asked if potential investors would be wary of venturing into the state, Sen said: "Risks would always be there."
It could be in the form of farmers agitation, market collapse or escalating costs, but every effort is being taken to ensure that the issue that upset Nano would never happen.