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SINGUR, India : Thousands of protestors armed with iron bars demonstrated Saturday over the decision by India's Tata Motors to abandon a factory to make the world's cheapest car.
The country's largest vehicle maker announced Friday that it was leaving the Nano car plant site on the outskirts of the West Bengal state capital Kolkata after weeks of violent protests by farmers angered by the forced purchase of their land.
Saturday's demonstrators were local residents who had either sold up willingly or had hoped that the plant in Singur would create jobs in the economically deprived area.
"We want the Nano to roll out from Singur," they chanted, as some dug up chunks of road, blocking traffic and leaving thousands of trucks stranded on the highway to Kolkata.
Kamu Maji, the owner of a tea shop near the plant, said his business had tripled since construction began on the factory -- which was almost completed by the time Tata Motors decided to call it a day.
Building was halted in late August when protests made work at the site impossible.
"You cannot run a plant when bombs are being thrown, you cannot run a plant when workers are being intimidated," Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata said as he announced the pull-out in Kolkata on Friday.
He said there was no possibility the company would change its mind.
Farmers and activists led by Mamata Banerjee, the fiery chief of the regional Trinamool Congress party, had accused the state government of forcing farmers to give up their fertile land for a pittance to make way for the plant.
On Saturday, farmers in the area were worried that they may have lost out twice.
"We're frustrated and confused," said Laxman Das, 60, whose land was purchased under a mandatory state government order.
"I don't think I will get back my land," he said, adding he still had not received any compensation for it.
"We have nothing to eat. We have nothing to wear," one angry man told reporters, while another wept as he talked about the prospect of being jobless.
Supporters of the plant said they would keep up their protests until the company returned to Singur.
Trade groups warned that the problems that engulfed the Nano, slated to be sold for 100,000 rupees (2,150 dollars), were a blow to India's efforts to woo badly needed investment.
"Given the global turmoil, foreign investors could decide to go to safer destinations and not come here," said Dilip Chenoy, director general of the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers.
Tata's pull-out decision was front-page news in Indian newspapers.
"Tata drives Nano out of Bengal," said the Business Standard's front-page headline. The Calcutta Telegraph lamented the death of "Bengal's symbol of industrial resurgence."
Industrialisation has been long championed by government officials as a way to pull tens of millions of Indians out of grinding poverty, but disputes over land ownership have made industrial expansion a battleground.
The Tatas had said they hoped to roll out the car this month or by December at the latest. They did not say where they would build the new plant.
Tata officials have said the first Nanos could be made at other Tata plants and the company has been flooded by invitations from other states.
The finances of Tata Motors, which poured 350 million dollars into the Singur plant, are already under pressure from digesting its 2.3-billion-dollar purchase of British motoring icons Jaguar and Land Rover, and from slowing domestic sales.
- AFP /ls
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