Friday, February 16, 2007
Singur yet again
The Tata Group on Friday said it was determined to roll out small cars from its Singur plant in West Bengal in 2008 itself despite several hiccups.
This may be a mistake for many reasons. Tata obviously seem to plan to bring out small cars of the Fiat variety, presumably a bit like cheap old Mumbai Fiat taxis. For a start they have had to up the cost before they have even started to build and secondly they appear to be wanting to use decent farming land. Already it is apparently going to be far far worse than the fabled "Betsy", no '48 Studebaker this one. It is generally recognised that Buddhadeb Bhattacharya's govt has not planned their land re-use situation adequately, indeed some might say it is based on political favours. A really bad start, as we see here.
"The Party headquartered in New Delhi is now trying to lighten the mistake made by Buddhadeb Bhattacharya government. Again, a colossal loss to development and employment potential in a state where industrialization has become a necessity.
Agricultural scientist MS Swaminathan's warnings should be taken seriously when he says Special Economic Zones should not be set up in an adhoc manner - the exercise calls for mapping of the chosen area through remote sensing. Mapping would help in finding the true biological potential of an area and based on that development process could be taken up."
In other words, an area which could even be the bread basket of the entire world is to be used to build small stinky not-so-cheap cars.
Now globalisation and climate worries give the potential to make a lot of money for India, for Indians and even for Tata. Toyota for instance, is already doing reasonably well globally with the Prius, much better than US car firms who got it wrong and currently seem to be on the skids, causing US unemployment problems and substantial US dislike. Actually pollution is now the key to solution of these problems (one review here) and India should leapfrog the world and build a cheap pollution free vehicle.
At least Ratan Tata has done better than the USA in one way. By now he must be more hated in India than George Bush and the polluting car firms are in the USA.
He is worried about competitors apparently. Well there is at least one possible competitor on his home turf in Pune now. Bajaj. Bajaj are on the lookout for land in Maharashtra and Uttarakhand.
If Bajaj brings out a 4 wheeler it surely cannot be as bad as a dumbed down Fiat or the horrible Tata Rover, panned on Top Gear.
This may be a mistake for many reasons. Tata obviously seem to plan to bring out small cars of the Fiat variety, presumably a bit like cheap old Mumbai Fiat taxis. For a start they have had to up the cost before they have even started to build and secondly they appear to be wanting to use decent farming land. Already it is apparently going to be far far worse than the fabled "Betsy", no '48 Studebaker this one. It is generally recognised that Buddhadeb Bhattacharya's govt has not planned their land re-use situation adequately, indeed some might say it is based on political favours. A really bad start, as we see here.
"The Party headquartered in New Delhi is now trying to lighten the mistake made by Buddhadeb Bhattacharya government. Again, a colossal loss to development and employment potential in a state where industrialization has become a necessity.
Agricultural scientist MS Swaminathan's warnings should be taken seriously when he says Special Economic Zones should not be set up in an adhoc manner - the exercise calls for mapping of the chosen area through remote sensing. Mapping would help in finding the true biological potential of an area and based on that development process could be taken up."
In other words, an area which could even be the bread basket of the entire world is to be used to build small stinky not-so-cheap cars.
Now globalisation and climate worries give the potential to make a lot of money for India, for Indians and even for Tata. Toyota for instance, is already doing reasonably well globally with the Prius, much better than US car firms who got it wrong and currently seem to be on the skids, causing US unemployment problems and substantial US dislike. Actually pollution is now the key to solution of these problems (one review here) and India should leapfrog the world and build a cheap pollution free vehicle.
At least Ratan Tata has done better than the USA in one way. By now he must be more hated in India than George Bush and the polluting car firms are in the USA.
He is worried about competitors apparently. Well there is at least one possible competitor on his home turf in Pune now. Bajaj. Bajaj are on the lookout for land in Maharashtra and Uttarakhand.
If Bajaj brings out a 4 wheeler it surely cannot be as bad as a dumbed down Fiat or the horrible Tata Rover, panned on Top Gear.
# posted by uv : 8:01 AM
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