Tata Motors' Singur debacle is not the first of its kind for the $60 billion group that is often referred to as 'nation builders'.
When Tata Motors announced late last evening that it was suspending work at Singur and looking for alternate locations to make the Nano car, it added one more to a long list of projects suspended mostly due to differences with one government or another.
Though not actually suspended the Rs 2500 crore Titanium project in the coastal town of Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu hangs in limbo for nearly a year now.
This project that envisages to mine for titanium-di-oxide (pigment from this mineral has a wide range of applications from making aircrafts to toothpastes) is waiting for procuring 10,000 acres of land. Tata Steel has not been unable to do this for want of clear land deeds and the Tamil Nadu government is not budging to acquire land for Tatas.
Tata Steel officials had earlier indicated that they will not be able to wait indefinitely given that the same mineral is available in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa.
In July this year, Tata Group had scrapped four projects in Bangladesh including a 1000 MW gas-fired power plant, a 500 MW coal based power plant and plans to make one million tonnes of fertilizer and 2.4 million tonnes of steel in Ishwardi.
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The estimated value of these projects were close to $4 billion. Since Bangladesh government could not provide the requisite natural gas for these projects they had been abandoned. Much before all of this, Tata Group attempted to bid for a 40 per cent stake in national carrier Air India and had tried to rope in Singapore as a consortium partner.
| TATA GROUP’S TROUBLED PAST… | |||
| Project led by | Location | Duration | Conceived size of the project |
| Tata Motors | Singur/West Bengal | 2007-2008 | Rs 1,500 crore |
| Tata Steel* | Tuticorin/Tamil Nadu | 2007-2008 | Rs 2,500 crore |
| Tata Steel | Gopalpur/Orissa | 1995-2000 | Rs 20,000 crore |
| Tata Group | Bangladesh | 2004-2008 | Rs 17,000 crore |
| Tata Group | Bid to pick stake in Air India with Singapore Airlines and launch its own carrier | Late Nineties | NA |
| Tata Steel | Kalinga Nagar, Orissa | 2004-2006 | Rs 15,400 crore |
| Tata Steel with L&T | Dhamra Port, Orissa | 2004# | NA |
This move and also the group's plans to enter the domestic air space with Singapore Airlines were quashed by the government. Though certain private airlines in India were rumored to be behind the government's action, Tata Group's airline project never quite took off after that.
Perhaps the worst is in Orissa. In the last two decades the Eastern state has lost as many as three Tata Group projects. In 1995 Tata Steel had announced to set up a 10 million tonne steel plant at Gopalpur at an estimated cost of Rs 20,000 crore. The project was to be set up in four phases of 2.5 million tonne each over a period of six years.
However, due to stiff resistance by the local people at Gopalpur, which saw death of two people in police firing, the land acquisition process got inordinately delayed. Though the company was able to acquire 2800 acres out of its requirement of 3000 acres by 1999, it still did not go ahead with the project. It finally announced shelving of the project in 2000 citing delay in land acquisition as one of the causes.
The other causes, it attributed for pulling out of the project, included lack of water facility, infrastructure bottlenecks like delay in Gopalpur port construction and railway linkage between the plant and mine site.
The land acquired by the Tata at Gopalpur is lying vacant and the company proposes to set up a multi-product SEZ there. Before the Gopalpur fiasco, Tatas had burnt their finger in the Chilka prawn culture project.
In early Ninties, Tata Steel, under the leadership of Russi Modi, had announced a Rs 100 crore project for prawn farming at Chilka lake. However, the project was later abandoned following resistance by the environmentalists.
Similarly, Tata Sons had teamed up with Indal and Norsk Hydro, also in early Ninties, to set up a one million tonne Rs 4000 crore alumina refinery at Kashipur in Rayagada district under the banner of Utkal Alumina International Ltd (UAIL).
However the project could not take off due to stiff resistance from locals to the land acquisition process. Finally in late 90s Tata Sons and Norsk Hydro withdrew from the project and the venture, which is now fully owned by Hindalco, subsequent to their takeover of Indal, is yet to make any progress due to local resistance.
Meanwhile, undeterred by these bad experiences, Tatas are currently pursuing a couple of mega projects in the state and ironically, all of them are entangled in land acquisition issues raising question marks about their future.
A few other projects that have not been abandoned but are facing trouble include Tata Steel's proposed 6 million tonne steel plant at Kalinga Nagar at an estimated cost of Rs 15,400 crore and entered into a MoU with the state government for the project in November, 2004.
The company was allotted 3000 acres of land in Kalinga Nagar Industrial Complex for the purpose. But with about 1200 families continuing to stay on in the land even after selling their property to the government in mid 90s, the company is facing a tough task to shift these families and clear the patch.
In fact, an attempt by the company to build boundary wall around the site had led to violent clash between the local tribal agitators and security forces and 14 tribals were killed in police firing on January 2, 2006.
The incident, one of the worst in industrial history of India, had not only affected the construction of the Tata Steel project at Kalinga Nagar, but also pegged back the entire industrialization process in the state.
Meanwhile, the project work which was due to start in 2006 has been delayed by nearly two years. The company, sources said, has been able to shift only 700 families out of 1200 families staying in the site and awaits the rest families to shift before going ahead with the work.