Region still reeling from Tata pullout
Thu, October 09 2008
A day after Tata group chairman Ratan Tata made the announcement, which had been apparent for some days, people last Saturday blamed both the Communist-led state government and the opposition Trinamool Congress party for being “irresponsible” in handling the prestigious project.
The drama that has unfolded since Friday evening, when Tata and Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee emerged from a closed door meeting to announce the Nano pullout, had people glued to their television sets watching the happenings in disbelief. Almost everyone had been hoping that Tata would remain at the Singur plant in Hooghly district, about 40 kilometres from Kolkata.
On Saturday morning, newspaper headlines greeted people adding to the pain of the “colossal loss” and apprehensions for the future of 80 million population of the state where the East India company first set up base.
Until the first decades of independence West Bengal was known as an industrial hub, including having the country’s first indigenous automobile plant in Hindustan Motors that produced the iconic Ambassador car.
‘Nano no more in West Bengal,’ said the banner headline in the largest circulated Bengali daily Anandabazar Patrika. ‘Nano moves out of Singur”, said the second largest circulated vernacular newspaper, Bartamaan.
For the youth it was like the end of a dream, their hopes of a better future permanently shattered.
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