Niira Radia Explains Why Ratan Tata Chose Singur For Nano Factory

The decision to build Nano, the Rs 1 lakh car, in Bengal's Singur, had taken the team of Ratan Tata, one of the country's tallest icons, by surprise, as did the unexpected price point of the car, Niira Radia, former chairperson of now-defunct Vaishnavi Communications -- which managed public relations for the Tata Group from 2000 to 2012 -- told NDTV in an exclusive interview today. Recalling Mr Tata and their decade-long association, Ms Radia described him as a dreamer and visionary who wanted to build a car that would keep the common man riding a two-wheeler "out of the rain". 

That the car would be built in Bengal's Singur was a surprise announcement, Ms Radia told NDTV - "We were not told what would be the site. We were really surprised".

Ratan Tata, she said, chose Bengal because he felt at the time that the state needed industrialisation. He chose Singur, because that was the seat of a legislator from the Opposition -- Rabindranath Bhattacharya of Trinamool Congress. Because "he always wanted to take everybody along with him," added Ms Radia, a close friend and confidante of the industrialist and philanthropist who died last week.

"It was natural for him. Why shouldn't it be Singur? He was for development, not to play politics," Ms Radia said. 

Had the plan worked, it would have brought unprecedented development - the way it did in Gujarat's Sanand, where the project shifted after the Opposition by Mamata Banerjee, who rode to power in 2011 on the back of that campaign. 

"The whole road from Kolkata to Singur would have developed hugely. As it happened in Sanad.... a great fillip. Today Sanand is like Gurgaon,' she said, pointing out that the opposition to the project at the time was purely political. "It was not about the Nano, Ratan, or the Tatas," Ms Radia said. 

The Left Front government had won the 2006 state assembly election on the promise of industrialization, development and jobs. The Nano project - announced by then Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee that May -- was seen as the vanguard of that change.  

But of the 997 acres acquired by the state government, 347 acres became disputed. The farmers found a champion in Mamata Banerjee, who held a 26-day hunger strike that drew attention across the country and ultimately changed the course of Bengal's future.

Nano ultimately went to Gujarat, then helmed by Narendra Modi. "We visited many states -- Punjab, Karnataka and Uttarakhand - after getting invitations. Then we got the invitation from Gujarat. Modi was there and there were Tata plants in Gujarat and he wanted to move to a state which is already industrialized," Ms Radia told NDTV. 

Tata Nano was discontinued by the company in 2020 after poor public response. 

In an emotional note on Instagram two years later, Ratan Tata wrote: "What really motivated me, and sparked a desire to produce such a vehicle, was constantly seeing Indian families on scooters, maybe the child sandwiched between the mother and father, riding to wherever they were going, often on slippery roads. One of the benefits of being in the School of Architecture, it had taught me to doodle when I was free. At first we were trying to figure out how to make two wheelers safer, the doodles became four wheels, no windows, no doors, just a basic dune buggy. But I finally decided it should be a car. The Nano, was always meant for all our people.