Work on Tata Motors’ new Nano plant at Singur near Kolkata (once Calcutta) was almost halted on Thursday with attendance dropping as workers who were allegedly threatened by the Trinamool Congress whose indefinite protest has now entered a fifth day.
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The protests have been organised by supporters of India’s ruling Congress party, which opposes the communist state government. The central issue is a battle between local people protesting the seizure of farm land for the plant and the state which allocated the land to the automaker.
The protest reflects a larger dispute between Indian industry and farmers unwilling to part with land in a country where two-thirds of the billion-plus population depends on agriculture.
Supporters of Trinamool Congress, which began the protest on Sunday promising that it would be peaceful, allegedly threatened workers who turned up for work, forcing them to return, police told an Indian newspaper.
A Tata Motors spokesman told media that attendance of the contract workers was less than 15% than that the previous day.
Before the protests, average attendance of contract workers was between 3,600 and 4,000, including both at the main car plant and the vendor park, reports said.
Attendance by engineers also was very thin against an average of 85.
The protesters were also reported to be threatening factory employees staying in rented houses at Baidyabati, Dankuni and Serampore nearby.
Thousands of trucks also remained stranded on the Durgapur highway running beside the site with consignments of perishable goods rotting in trucks.
West Bengal’s communist government last week began talking to leaders of Trinamool Congress.
Tata plans to launch the Nano later this year at the new factory on a 400-hectare (1,000-acre) site in Singur.
Dealers said last June they had been hoping to open order books next month for first deliveries in October.
