Tata Nano plant in Gujarat inaugurated

SANAND - For Tata Motors, the journey from Singur in West Bengal to Sanand in Gujarat, bore fruit Wednesday when Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new plant that will deliver 2,50,000 Nano cars a year.

“We belong to Gujarat and are happy to return to Gujarat,” said chairman Ratan Tata.

“I am glad that we will now be able to manufacture the Tata Nano across the country,” he added.

Tata had to find a new home for his Nano plant after it was forced out of Singur in 2008 by a campaign led by Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamool Congress. They alleged that farmers were being forced to surrender their land at unfair rates by the Left Front government fo the Tata’s car plant.

The elaborate schedule of events Wednesday at Sanand to go along with the inauguration was, however, marred by a windstorm, heralding the impending cyclone, which led to the cancellation of a press conference.

A company spokesman said deliveries from the plant, including BS4 Tata Nanos, will begin this month. The output, supplemented by the facility at Pantnagar in Uttarakhand, will complete pending orders from the booking process of 2009.

He said the 250,000 cars per annum capacity of the plant will be achieved in phases, and with some balancing this could be expanded up to 350,000 cars per year.

Built in a record time of 14 months starting November 2008, the integrated facility comprises Tata Motors’ own plant, spread over 725 acres, and an adjacent vendor park, spread over 375 acres, to house key component manufactures for the Tata Nano.

The plant has state-of-the-art equipments. These include sophisticated robotics and high speed production lines.

Conscious of the critical need of environment protection, the plant has energy-efficient motors, variable frequency drives, and systems to measure and monitor carbon levels. These are supplemented with extensive tree plantation, sustainable water sourcing through water harvesting and ground water recharging and harnessing solar energy for illumination.

The plant has already directly employed 2,400 people. As the capacity is increased, the project, along with the vendor park, is expected to generate about 10,000 direct and indirect jobs.