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The much awaited agreement for the mother plant of Tata Motors’ small car factory was inked on Friday, with Tata Motors shooting up the quantum of investment from Rs1000 crore to Rs 1,500 crore, just for the mother plant. This apart, the government is expecting another Rs 500 crore investment from the different vendors of the ancillary units.

The agreement was signed among Tata Motors’ Vice President and Finance, Mr RS Thakur and West Bengal Industrial; Development Corporation MD, Debasish Som.

Today’s agreement was over 645 acres of land, where the mother plant is coming up. Leaving the mother plant, 290 acres would be earmarked for the ancillary units, where separate agreements would be signed with the individual vendors. Another 47 acres would be reserved under WBIDC’s custody for infrastructure development. About 14.5acres would be used for a 220 KV power substation.  

Principal secretary of Commerce and Industry, Sabyasachi Sen, who was also a signatory from behalf of the government, apart from WBIDC MD, Debasish Som said that the investment amount has increased perhaps because the Tatas were looking at increasing the capacity of the project.  

Sen added that Tata Motors is getting the land for a period of 90 years of lease. Though he refused to elaborate on the finer points of the deals, Hindustan Times has found out that Rs100 crore would be paid as upfront money apart from a lease rent of Rs 10 lakhs per month in other words 1.2crores per year for a period of 10 years. Moreover, the WBIDC would take a loan of Rs 150 crores from West Bengal Infrastructure Development Corporation for infrastructure-building and Tata would return the loan at a rate of 0.1% rate of interest. Rs 90 lakh is being spent for the factory shed, which would be constructed by the government, at its expense.

Quizzed further on the deal, Sen said that everything will be revealed on the floor of the Assembly.

Meanwhile, chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee at the core committee meeting with the Front partners yesterday had said that he would disclose all the details of the agreement at the Assembly. He is reported to have assured the ministers of the Front partners that though they had to maintain initial silence on account of corporate secrecy, it was high time that they would reveal the deal because the government was functioning under parliamentary democracy and there was no place for secrecy.