When he addressed the media after his landslide victory in the Assembly elections on Thursday, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddadeb Bhattacharjee’s private secretary handed him a note. Bhattacharjee, after reading it, said with a smile: ‘‘It’s a message from Ratan Tata. But I cannot tell you what it is about.’’

Today he did. Tata Motors has zeroed in on West Bengal for its much-awaited Rs 1-lakh car facility.

The official announcement is expected by May 18, when Ratan Tata is scheduled to meet the Chief Minister.

While Tata Motors Managing Director Ravi Kant, who, along with his team, met the CM this morning, continued to hedge saying that West Bengal was still one of the destinations for setting up the project, the Chief Minister told newspersons after the meeting that the decision was final.

Nirupam Sen, minister for industry, said the team would be checking out locations in Uluberia, Dankuni and Shankrail today, as added options besides Guptamani near Kharagpur—that the company had already checked out last month. Tata Motors has also been scouting for locations in Karnataka and Maharashtra. Besides the West Bengal government’s pursuit of the project what has swayed the decision in favour of locating the project in the State is the presence of Tata Steel and Tata Metallics in the vicinity.

With the price tag committed at the stiff Rs 1 lakh level, the pressure is on cost. As Tata Steel is slated to supply the cold-rolled steel for the car body from its Jamshedpur plant and Tata Metallics is to provide the grey iron castings for the chassis, locating here will cut out a lot of logistics cost.

... contd.