Abhijit Ray,Kolkata:Jamshedpur is nowpast and the future is West Bengal’s Kharagpur. After 15 years of the Singur controversy, the Tata group again made many fresh investments in Bengal.Now,they have closed their one factory in Jamshedpur in Jharkhand and to increase the scope of industrial production, they have brought the same factory in Kharagpur. Reiterating that the MSME sector is all set to employ over 41 lakh people in the next few years, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday announced a major investment by Tata Hitachi which is shutting down its unit at Jamshedpur and is shifting to Kharagpur in West Midnapore. “This is a big industry for Bengal.Now, the unit has been fully operational in Kharagpur in the state. It is now the de facto main factory of Tata-Hitachi, a joint venture between Tata Motors and Japan’s Hitachi Construction Machinery. Hundreds of crores of rupees have been invested there. The number of direct jobs is more than three thousand as of date.Tata Hitachi’s new unit is expected to play a supporting role in the coal extraction phase at Deucha-Pachami in Birbhum. Japan’s Hitachi company owns 60 percent of the company, while tata motors own the rest. The chief minister also mentioned the issue of the new unit at an emergency meeting of the West Bengal Industry Promotional Board at Nabanna on Wednesday.Tata-Hitachi’s factory in Jamshedpur was established in 1961. The board of directors decided to wrap it up and move it elsewhere. On behalf of the state government, Sandeep Singh, managing director of Tata-Hitachi, approached Dr Amit Mitra, the then finance minister and current chief financial advisor to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. It was he who offered to bring the factory to the industrial taluk of Kharagpur. Tata also reported the matter to Hitachi’s headquarters in Tokyo.Eight conditions were given to the state to make the industrial taluk of Kharagpur a ‘hub’ of international standards. Dr Mitra claimed that the factory was brought to Kharagpur from Jamshedpur after fulfilling those conditions. The arrival of the Heavy Engineering Manufacturing Unit in Bengal is proof of the genuine industry-friendly environment created in the state under the leadership of the Chief Minister. The Tata group will further expand its investment base in the state.According to sources, the board of directors of Tata Sponge Iron Limited, another subsidiary of Tata Steel, has also decided to shift the Joda factory in Keonjhar, Odisha, to Bengal. For this purpose, the headquarters of the company has already been brought to Kolkata. It is likely that they will start production in Bengal under the name ‘Tata Steel Long Products’.Tata-Hitachi had a manufacturing unit in Kharagpur since 2009. The land was acquired there in the Singur phase. Mini excavators, wheel loaders, back ho loaders, dump trucks, etc. were made there. In 2014, the factory started exporting commercially abroad. Recently, the Tata group bought more than 100 acres of land from the state government. This new unit will increase the production scope there.
Tata shutting down its Factory from Jharkhand;Tata Hitachi is now full operational in Kharagpur, West Bengal
