Completion of Nano plant a challenge: Tata

Jul 2, 2008

The factory will be expanded to address domestic and international demands, Tata said in the company’s annual report, released on Tuesday.

Kolkata: Faced with cost escalations and other problems, Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata Motors Ltd, termed the completion of the company’s Tata Nano plant in Singur a “challenge”, but said it will still be the main manufacturing base for the world’s cheapest car.
The factory will be expanded to address domestic and international demands, Tata said in the company’s annual report, released on Tuesday.
“New variants of the Nano are currently under development to meet the new environmental and fuel price challenges, as also the requirement of several international markets,” Tata told shareholders in the annual report.
On Saturday, Tata Motors managing director Ravi Kant said the project cost had gone up “considerably” and that the company had already spent more than Rs2,000 crore on the Singur factory, which was initially expected to manufacture up to 250,000 cars a year.
“We have had many challenges. (Because of) last year’s flood we had to change our entire plan… raise the (floor) level considerably, and it has of course escalated the project cost considerably,” Kant said in Kolkata after meeting West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.
The state government had launched a Rs170 crore project to address the problem of flooding at Singur, but it had not progressed much due to want of funds, said an irrigation department official, who did not want to be named.
Another demand made by the company that was not fulfilled was for a four-lane service road connecting the factory with NH2.

source:livemint