New Delhi - An industrial dispute over Tata Motors'
acquisition of land in West Bengal for a factory to build the 'Nano'
- billed as the world's cheapest car - ended on Sunday. P
Protesters reached an agreement with local government on
compensation to farmers whose cropland had been acquired for the
plant, news reports said.
After three days of talks initiated by West Bengal Governor Gopal
Gandhi, a grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, the two sides had reached 'an
acceptable formula,' Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader
Shyamal Chakraborty was quoted as saying by IANS news agency.
The CPI-M is the leading partner in West Bengal's left party
coalition government.
The opposition Trinamool Congress-led forum of farmers, Maoist
groups and some left parties had been holding demonstrations outside
the Tata plant at Singur, about 40 kilometres north of Kolkata, since
August 24 demanding that 400 acres of the 980 acres of land that had
been acquired from farmers against their will should be returned.
After weeks of stand-off Tata Motors suspended work at the plant
on Tuesday saying its workers felt threatened and had warned that it
may relocate the project.
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Trinamool
Congress chief Mamata Banerjee met for nearly two hours at the
governor's residence on Sunday to cobble together the compromise
under which farmers will receive alternative land and a committee
will be set up to look into the land issue, Chakrabarty said.
The controversy over the Nano factory had led several other state
governments to offer Tata Motors the option of moving the project to
manufacture the 100,000-rupee (less than 2,500 dollars) small car to
their regions.
The government of Sri Lanka also on Sunday invited Tata Motors to
relocate the car project to that country.
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