Battlefield Singur

Singur hasn’t woken up to a more tense dawn. Every morning at 6.30 the first shift begins at the plant. Two hours later, it’s time for the general shift. report Avijit Ghosal & Snigdhendu Bhattacharya.

Singur hasn’t woken up to a more tense dawn. Every morning at 6.30 the first shift begins at the plant. Two hours later, it’s time for the general shift. Soon the plant becomes abuzz with about 4,000 workers racing against time to set up the country’s quickest car plant.

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The Trinamool Congress-led dharna threatens to suspend this routine sine die. Will the dharna halt construction work at the plant? On Sunday evening, neither Tata representatives nor government industry department officials had any clear idea.

“The Tatas have already moved some men and materials inside the plant over the past few days,” revealed a government official, but added, “they may not be enough to resume normal work.”

Every morning busses are provided from Singur station and different points, including Kolkata, to bring workers to the site. But today it looks like a war zone. All gates to enter the plant are blocked — the Trinamool dharna is on at 21 points along the boundary wall. While the cops are guarding the gates staying inside the plant, ahordes of Opposition supporters are thronging just outside. It is almost impossible for workers to make their way in.

Meanwhile, sensing trouble, labourers had begun fleeing from Thursday. From around 1,700 skilled labourers who live inside the plant, almost 700 had left Singur till Sunday morning.