Left puts its bet on Singur project

New Delhi: Just a few hours from Kolkata, in Singur, a proposed car factory of the Tatas' has put the opposition Trinamool Congress on the warpath with West Bengal's Left Front government.

The Trinamool-led group of parties have given a 24-hour deadline to the West Bengal government to stop acquisition of land for the Tata Motors project and remove police from the area. However, the Left front government remains determined to go ahead with the project.

Considering that the government is taking away nearly 1,000 acres of agricultural land from 6,000 families, how many people can Tata Motor rehabilitate?

If the statistics that are being circulated in Left circles is anything to go by, the the answer is — not much.

Maruti, the country's largest car maker, built its factory on 602 acres of land in 1984. In 22 years, it has recruited nearly 4,500 employees.

Built on 537 acres, Hyundai's Chennai car factory is the second largest in the country. The county's biggest exporter employees nearly 4,000 people.

And the Tata's Pune factory is stretched across 1,700 acres, but only 170 acre is used for car production and the rest to manufacture trucks and vehicles for the Army.

The West Bengal government claims that nearly 10,000 people will get employement through the project. However, the claims are rubbished by the opposition.

"The Tata Motor company can at the most employ 800 people. Most of these skilled hands will be from outside the state. Even if a few ancillaries are set up, the total employment will not exceed 2000," says Trinamool Congress Sougata Roy.

Questions are now being raised on the state government's role in the spiralling controversy.

"We are trying our best to provide a full map of West Bengal after demarcating agricultural, urban and industrial land," says Chief Minister of West Bengal Buddhadeb Bhattacharya.

Off the record, many leaders of the Left Front say they do not want Singur to become a national issue as it would mean more debate, more controversy and further delay.

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