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Six years on, Ratan Tata hasn't forgotten the pain inflicted on him and his group by the relocation of the Nano project from Singur in West Bengal to Sanand in Gujarat. Responding to questions at the Ladies Study Group here on Wednesday, the Tata Group chairman-emeritus said while the decision to shift the project was a "prudent" one, it involved a "very high negative cost".
"When we launched the Nano, we created global excitement and put India on the map of creating a $2,500 car which everyone said couldn't be done. When we announced the product, we had 300,000 orders and a waiting list of close to two years," Tata said,
Attributing the loss in the Nano's market share to the relocation, he said, "In the year we lost in moving from Singur to Sanand, much of the excitement died. People started thinking the product wouldn't come; it gave competitors a chance to badmouth our product. So, in hindsight, it was prudent to move because it wouldn't have been possible to operate in the hostile environment but we lost the excitement around the product in the marketplace, which affected its longer-term market."
Last year, Tata had admitted the positioning of Nano as the "cheapest car" had impacted its image. The Nano, unveiled by Tata at the New Delhi Auto Expo in January 2008, made its market debut in 2010, delayed by the relocation. Sales of the model are much below the company's expectations and the plant at Sanand is yet to achieve full capacity. The Nano project in West Bengal was announced in May 2006, immediately after Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was sworn in as the state's chief minister for the second time. Soon, unwilling land losers at the project site, supported by then Opposition leader Mamata Banerjee, led an indefinite agitation against the project. Eventually, it led to the relocation of the project in October 2008, when the plant was nearly 80 per cent complete.
Tata recalled the difficult decision and reiterated what he had said during the pullout. "If you hold a gun to my head, you have two choices - either you move the gun away or pull the trigger because I will not move my head." Without mentioning Mamata, who he had earlier alluded to as the "bad M", Tata on Wednesday thanked another 'M' for giving the Nano a home. "I owe (PM) Modi a great deal; he gave us a new home."
Both Tata and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee believed the Nano would usher in a wave of industrial development in Bengal. Going by Tata's words, it seemed much of the promise remained unfulfilled. Asked whether there was any change in the since he left, Tata said, "I haven't been back to Kolkata much since those heady days of West Bengal. As we were driving from the airport, the change at Rajarhat was unbelievable, in terms of buildings. There is a lot of residential and commercial development but it still looks like countryside under development. You don't see much sign of industrial development."
