As the world sets its eyes on Mumbai to see Nano’s launch, Singur — once planned to roll out the world’s cheapest car — lies desolate

Twenty-four-year-old Santosh Singh travelled all the way from Supavali village in Bihar’s Siwan district and reached Singur on Sunday. He is a happy man, as he will get Rs 150 daily for dismantling the factory that was once slated to roll out the world’s cheapest car. Outside the gates of once Tata’s Nano factory site, Santosh says: “We have just two acres of land in our village and farming is not that profitable. But now like other men of my village, I am here to dismantle the paint shop in the factory. They will pay me good.” In contrast to Santosh’s happiness, youths of Singur are sad. For many of them, who had secured a job at the factory, time seems to have stopped at the now-abandoned factory site.

As final touches are being made in Mumbai for the launch of Nano on Monday, abandoned makeshift shops, unemployed youths, empty ATM counters, shops without customers dot the landscape of Singur, depicting the tragedy of a missed opportunity.

The nearly completed factory stands desolate, housing the gigantic equipment that is now wrapped up in huge sheet of plastic. While some of the infrastructures are being slowly dismantled, ferns have already grown up on iron beams.

“I used to work in the Tata factory in the electrical maintenance department and got Rs 1,700 per month. In January, I stopped getting my salary. Now, I have to think hundred times before I visit the pharmacy shop when my eight-month-old son Rupam falls ill,” says 27-year-old Monimohan Bangal. Monimohan was in the first batch of local youths who received training at different ITIs in the state and served as an apprentice in Tata’s Pune factory for a month before being inducted into the Nano factory in Singur.

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