Singur unrest may delay Nano's mid-Oct launch

SHIFT FROM SINGUR? A shift would mean the Nano's delivery deadlines may get delayed by a month.

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Singur: A visibly upset Ratan Tata had last week threatened to pull out of Singur.

"We have plans to launch Nano by October, but many people don't want that to happen," he had said.

But if the TATA Group decides to pull out of West Bengal, what happens to the October roll out date for the Nano?

Sources tell CNN-IBN that the car will keep to its deadline, with the TATAs working on a backup plan.

The first fallback option is the TATA Motors' Pantnagar plant in Uttarakhand. It has a plant size of close to 1,000 acres where over 2.5 lakh mini-trucks - the Tata Ace - are being manufactured. This plant can produce over 40,000 Nanos, but the shift from Singur means the delivery deadlines could get delayed by at least a month.

The second, less likely options, are the TATA plants in Pimpri in Pune or Dharwad in Karnataka. Pimpri is TATA's passenger and LCV production centre. The Dharwad plant is a joint venture manufacturing low-floor marcopolo buses.

In Singur, work may have been stalled for now, but 80 per cent of the work in the plant almost complete. If Trinamool Congress' Mamata Banerjee and West Bengal Chief Minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya can come to an agreement, then the TATAs will able to successfully meet their mid-October deadline.

(With inputs from Varun Kumar)