The fate of the Nano continues to be uncertain with a hastily convened meeting between West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee on Friday evening ended inconclusively.
While the government could not offer more than 70 acres inside
the project area, Mamata stuck to her previous deamand. She said, “We will settle for nothing less than 300 acres inside the complex.” But she said she was open to more talks.
The Tatas, however, have already set a deadline of September 14 for the resolution of the crisis.
A visibly anxious chief minister left the Kolkata Information Centre — where the talks were held amid reports that the Tatas were already shifting machinery from the Singur project – without a word to the waiting media men.
Meanwhile, the Tatas are upset with the government for publishing the details of their pact with the state government and moved the High Court against what it alleged was a violation of the memorandum of agreement.
The High Court restrained the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation and the state’s chief information officer from making public any details of the agreement struck on March 9, 2007.
The directive came on a writ petition filed by Tata Motors, alleging that putting on the details of its agreement on the WBIDC website was in violation of the agreement itself. Industries minister Nirupam Sen maintained that only the memorandum was made public, and not the details contained in annexure.
Sen, however, was not present at Friday’s meeting. Instead, urban development minister Gautam Deb, who had been keeping an informal channel open with a close Mamata aide, assisted the chief minister in the negotiations.
“More land is available within the project. There is no need for land for greenery and gallery there itself, they can be shifted elsewhere”, she argued, adding, “How to get land from the project area is the government’s problem, not ours.”