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.

The three-bigha land owned by Monimohan’s family in Gopalnagar was acquired for the car project.

“Now, only 1.5 acres of land is left with us. We have also spent most of the money. It is very hard for me to return to farming after having served as a factory worker in uniform. My ATM card, given by the company, has also become invalid. I know that the Nano is being launched from another state. We are all shattered here,” adds Monimohan. While he is happy that some of the local youths have gone to work at the Tata’s Pune factory as apprentices, he at the same time fears that they may return home since there is no guarantee that they will be hired.

For Amar Santra and Muzaffar Mullick, life has come a full circle. Their hand-to-mouth existence has returned but this time they also have an additional burden of debt. The duo, like some of his friends, had bought motorcycle vans and used to ferry workers from Singur station to the Nano factory. Today, there are no passengers.

“This route was opened two years ago when the Nano factory was just coming up here. We were among the 100 unemployed youths, who had bought motorcycle vans to carry workers to the plant and charged Rs 5 per head. However, since last September, when construction work stopped at the plant, number of passengers dwindled. Now, we hardly get any passenger. We return home empty-handed,” says 30-year-old Amar Santra. “Our world changed due to the factory, and now as Nano is rolling out from somewhere else, our hopes are lost forever,” says Ramen Pakhira, whose shop lies close to the factory site.

“Earlier, I used to sell goods of Rs 5,000 daily. Now, I hardly get Rs 100. At that time, the market bustled with crowds of workers, officers, contractors. Now, it is barren as we wait for a customer,” adds Pakhira.

Then there are over 300 people who pooled in the money they got as compensation against their land to form syndicates to supply raw materials to the factory. After work stopped in the Nano plant in September last year, these people are yet to get their money back.

“What will I say? Now they are launching the Nano in Mumbai. The Nano was a dream for us, the people of Singur, but now that dream has been shattered. Imagine if it was launched from here,” says Debi Das, a resident of Gopalnagar. “I am yet to get around Rs 6 lakh from various companies, that got raw materials from us. They promised me they would pay back,” adds Das.