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Tata�s Singur project �inefficient� : techies write to Buddhadeb Sankar Kumar Ray, Kolkalta Published on January 10, 2007
The controversial �people�s car� factory, proposed to be built up by the Tata Motors Ltd , �does not compare favourably with world standards for land usage�, stated Prof. Om Damani, IIT-Bombay, Prof. Rukmini Dey and Prof. Rajesh Gopakumar, Harishchandra Research Institute, Allahabad, and a few software professionals in a letter to the West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee. Citing the Toyota-Peugeot a car factory, inaugurated on the outskirts of Prague, the technologists said that the Czech plant has a capacity of 300,000 cars/year in an area of 124 hectares (306 Acres). Opposing the Singur project, they argue that the Tata factory ought to have perceived in a substantially smaller than 900-plus acre area. �In a European country there may be so much open space that having a 1:6 ratio between built up and total area, as is the case with the Toyota factory in Kol�n of Central Bohemia in Czechoslavakia, may be acceptable. But why should India's prime agricultural farmland that feeds a starving nation be so sacrificed? What is going to be the built-up area of the Tata's factory at Singur? How do you justify the 997 acres being acquired as being in public interest?� A Toyota press communiqu� at the time of inaugural function claimed, "It's built-up area of a mere 21 ha is viewed by the automobile industry as a record-breaking low. Modern and compact, this work of architecture requires very low levels of energy consumption to operate technology and run the plant. Modern and compact, this work of architecture requires very low levels of energy consumption to operate technology and run the plant." Among environmental and anti-pollution measures are degreasing and cleaning of car bodies, anti-corrosion ED coating, weld and undercarriage sealing, and primary clear-coating and colour coating. Cars will have to pass through a baking oven between individual coatings. As the primary paint and ED coatings are diluted with water, the oven must be heated to 190�C instead of the 120�C that suffice for producer used organic diluents. The choice of location took three years of elaborate study between 2001 and 2004. According to the Toyota-Peugeot plan, 1250 persons would be recruited with assured �long-term, stable employment where redundancy is the exception�. Keeping in view the state of unemployment in the concerned region of Czechoslovakia, the Japanese-Italian venture set out the ratio of employees from the vicinity (up to 50 km from the plant site ) to employees from further away at 40:60 approximately. In fact,700 persons were recruited before the inauguration and were sent to Toyota plants in France, Great Britain, Turkey, and Japan for on-hand training. They employees spent a total of 21,150 days. Over � 40 million was incurred in employee- training. Furthermore, the foreign investors expressed their commitment to � support 14 projects, including a summer camp for children from underprivileged families, constructing part of a bicycle route, creating new green areas in the village of Velk� Osek, reconstruction of a playground in Kol�n inter alia. Bhattacharjee has been urged�not to sacrifice agricultural land of Singur for a highly inefficient land-guzzling car factory being planned by the Tatas�
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