18th. May 2006 - Story of a Never Never Land Tatas, Videocon bring big projects to West Bengal
KOLKATA: For Brand Buddha, it was a holy Thursday. On a day when the seventh Left Front government assumed power, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's industry-friendly image received a big boost, with the Tata and Videocon groups announcing a combined investment of Rs 2,150 crore and 35,000 new jobs.
The Tata group chairman said the car would be available from 2008 in both petrol and diesel variants. It would have four doors and be able to seat 4-5 people.
The car project would come up on 700 acres at Singur block of Chandannagar subdivision in the Hooghly district, with additional facilities for a vendor park.
Construction of the factory - which is expected to create more than 10,000 jobs over a period of time - will start soon. "We will hand over the required land in 4-5 months, " Bhattacharjee said.
Apart from the car project, Tata also announced that Telco Construction Equipment, a Tata Motors subsidiary, would set up a new earthmoving equipment unit at Kharagpur at a cost of Rs 250 crore.
"We are bullish about Bengal and want to expand our presence here, " Videocon chairman Venugopal Dhoot said, after a meeting with the CM. "Across all our facilities, we want to create 25,000 jobs in the state in the next 2-3 years, " he added.
Dhoot said Videocon would spend Rs 100 crore on establishing an LCD monitor manufacturing unit at Taratolla. A 4-million sq/ft IT park, entailing a cost of Rs 800 crore, would be set up at Salt Lake.
An indication that the Tata small car project would come here had been given last week itself when Bhattacharjee had said that it was "almost final" that Tata Motors would locate its small car plant in Bengal.