Tata Motors Ltd's plan to build the world's cheapest car faces delays after an Indian political party vowed to escalate protests over the compulsory sale of farmland for the factory.
Trinamool Congress, the biggest opposition party in West Bengal, said it will hold a rally outside the factory today and block roads across the state tomorrow to demand the return of 162 hectares of land.
Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee offered to compensate the farmers to end a dispute after Tata threatened to move the project.
"We don't care," Mamata Banerjee, leader of the party, told reporters in Singur, West Bengal. "I will continue the agitation unless and until the matter is solved."
Land disputes, protests by environmental groups and delays in getting government approval have stalled projects across India including a US$12-billion steel plant planned by South Korea's Posco.
Tata Chairman Ratan Tata said last week he may move the plant, jeopardizing the US$2,500 Nano car.
"Mr Tata, go home," Banerjee said in a speech from the stage to cheering supporters, who waved the Trinamool Congress tricolor flag. "You may have a lot of money. But we who don't have the money are not as greedy as you."
The 623-cc Nano is crucial for Tata Motors, India's biggest truck maker, to boost sales among first-time car buyers in India, where more than 45 million people use motorcycles for transportation.
Tata Motors slumped 2.4 percent, the biggest drop on the MSCI India/Industrials Index, to 423.5 rupees in Mumbai yesterday. The stock has fallen 41 percent this year, reported Bloomberg News.
At least 2,000 men and women joined the protests in front of the Tata Motors factory at Singur on Tuesday. People came in trucks, motorcycles and cars to listen to Banerjee and other party leaders speak from a stage erected along the Durgapur national highway that connects Kolkata to New Delhi.
An estimated 50,000 protesters will join today's rally led by the party's student wing, said Partha Chatterjee, leader of the Trinamool party.
About 30,000 people demonstrated on Sunday, the first day of the protests, according to police estimates.
Banerjee said she didn't have any issue with the land where the Tata Motors plant is under construction. The balance of about 162 hectares of land acquired for Tata's component vendors must be returned to farmers, whose livelihood was taken away by the plant, she said.
Party supporters will block roads across the state on Friday in support of the farmers, she said.
Police have barricaded the highway near the plant and have diverted trucks and other vehicles to an older, narrow road. Hundreds of trucks were parked alongside the highway since the protests began.
Delays in completing the factory may upset Tata Motors' plan to introduce the Nano in the last quarter of this year and risk US$344 million invested in the factory.
