Open letter ro Mr. Ratan Tata and Mr Muthuraman

Dear Mr. Ratan Tata and Mr. Muthuraman,

After reading the following

Meanwhile, Tata Motors Managing Director Ravi Kant said in an interview with Bengali news channel Kolkata TV that the company was "committed to the development" of Singur and "well-being of the people on whose land the factory will come up".

The commitment remain the same only Gopalpur has been replaced with Singur

I couldn't resist myself to let the people of West Bengal know , how liars the TATAs are. Around 12 years back you have changed lives of people of 3 or 4 villages , Badapur , the poorest village, followed by Patrapur and Sindhigan.

You have forced them to go to another place, forced to change their profession. Some survived and some ran away to Surat (Gujrat) to earn their bread and butter.

We also came to know that you kept appeasing some bureaucrats of Orissa with large size High Definition color TVs to keep their mouth shut. This was reported in a news paper in Orissa a year back.

We have written several letters to Chief minister of Orissa, who feel proud to share stage with Mr. Ratan Tata. he will never ask you to return the land to IDCO to keep it as a reserve for future project like Mittals/Russian etc. Obviously, he will never slap you with any show cause notice.Our request has gone to dustbin.

For several years you have hired a office space at Berhampur , near Gajapati Nagar, just to fool people that TATA STEEL project is still active.

The day you have decided not to go for steel plant, you should have returned the land to IDCO, so that IDCO would have given that to some other party and the people of Berhampur would have seen some Industrial development.

After writing several times in this forum also the main opposition congress never raised this as an assembly question.We don't have a bold leader like Mamata Banrjee.

We have sufficient reason to believe that your contribution to the election funds of political parties of Orissa is the reason of keeping their mouth shot.

Mr. Ratan Tata is a highly respected figure in India and abroad. It gives me no pleasure to write an open letter to him. But it is necessary because I have spend my 15 years of life very close to that area and seen how people's land taken for nothing. TATA steel breached People's aspirations and no more a credible brand name among us.

We have full sympathy with the villager of Singur as we share the same concern and full support for Mamta Banarjee. Long live Mamta Banarjee, who is trying to save a 6 crop land.

I also urge the Kolkata Press to bring this events to public and let public judge the false promises of TATAs, please have a look at the following piece of news from Business standard as well. 3+ years passed no action.

Finally, on behalf of Orissa Today Group, I urge Mr. Ratan Tata to return the land acquired at Gopalpur to IDCO so that the same can be used by Mittals and so many acres of land will be saved for further acquisition.

Thanks

Manoj Padhi

Moderator - Orissa Today group.

Tata Steel, Orissa form SPV for Gopalpur SEZ
Business Standard — July 29, 2003

Kolkata: Tata Steel and the Orissa government will set up a special purpose vehicle (SPV) for the proposed Gopalpur special economic zone (SEZ).

B Muthuraman, managing director, said the SPV will be set up for promoting the SEZ. Tata Steel is, however, yet to decide upon the extent of its holding in the SPV. The modalities are expected to be finalised shortly.

The advantage of a SEZ is that the Gopalpur port can handle deep draft vessels. Moreover, the steel ministry had also approached the railway minister for setting up a railway transport corporation in Gopalpur.

The Orissa government is also looking at converting the fair-weather port into an all-weather one. The SEZ will effectively utilise the 4,000 acre acquired in Gopalpur by Tata Steel for its proposed 10 million tonne steel plant, planned in the 1990s. Work on the project was never initiated.

The first phase of the mammoth project was estimated at Rs 7,000 crore. The land was acquired by displacing one village completely and four others partially. Three factors prevented Tata Steel from going ahead with its plan — no progress on the port, poor linkage of iron ore and non-availability of water.

However, to meet existing demand Tata Steel decided to augment capacity by adding one million tonne at its Jamshedpur plant. Commenting on the steel business, Muthuraman said prices were expected to be stable in the coming months. Tata Steel posted a 315.93 per cent rise in its net profit to Rs 267.07 crore for the first quarter ended June 30, 2003.

Net sales for the quarter grew 27.8 per cent to Rs 2,257.10 crore compared with Rs 1,764.93 crore. Analysts tracking the company said the steel sector is on an upswing and the trend is likely to continue, at least as long as China remained a net importer of steel.

While Tata Steel had already become economic value-added positive, the company is gearing up to manage the inevitable volatility of the cyclical steel industry.

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Kolkata: Former prime minister and prominent Left Front ally V.P. Singh met with Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee Friday and urged her to withdraw her indefinite hunger strike protesting the upcoming Tata car project in Singur.

Banerjee, however, refused to withdraw her fast until the West Bengal government accepted her conditions, including a halt in the acquisition of Singur farmlands, about 40 km northwest of here.

Singh met Banerjee at the Esplanade in downtown Kolkata where the leader is on fast. The Trinamool chief's hunger strike entered its 12th day Friday.

"I urge you with folded arms to withdraw the fast. You need to live for the sake of the poor," Singh told Banerjee.

"I promise that this fight would be fought everywhere in India. This is a national issue and we are fighting it in many places. We all have to come together and fight for the farmers," he added.

"I have come here to find a way out through talks," Singh said as Banerjee apprised him of the Singur situation and how "women and children are tortured there" and "democratic rights of the people are being curbed".

She told him that the state government was "giving the land almost free to the Tatas along with electricity and water".

"It is a six crop land in many places. It is a model agricultural land. Some industrial units which have come up there have also been asked to leave in favor of the Tatas," Banerjee said.

Earlier, Singh had met Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya over the same issue.

Meanwhile, Tata Motors Managing Director Ravi Kant said in an interview with Bengali news channel Kolkata TV that the company was "committed to the development" of Singur and "well-being of the people on whose land the factory will come up".

He made said the Tata Motors would not give up the project and roll out the car by mid 2008.

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Q: What's the difference between the Government and the Mafia?

A: One of them is organised.

Manoj Padhi