Nano Mother plant getting ready
The country’s little car, Nano, was officially launched in the market on Monday. But the people of Sanand, a sleepy suburb in Ahmedabad, which is the chosen site for the mother plant of the car, will still have to wait for a while before they can witness the roll-out.
According to locals, there’s been frenetic activity at the site over the past few days. “Machines and equipment are coming in,” said a villager.
Adhering to their schedule to roll out Nano by the end of 2010, executives of Tata Motors have been working round the clock ever since the MoU to relocate the plant from Singur in West Bengal to Sanand was inked between Chief Minister Narendra Modi and the Tata Group.
Highly placed sources close to the project said the construction of ancillary plant buildings are in progress, and are expected to be completed within the next couple of weeks.
A drive down the road where the plant is coming up bears testimony to this, as beyond the barbed wire fencing, several sheds made of pre-engineered steel structures, have come up. Phenix Varco Pruden, pre-engineered steel structure building manufacturer, has bagged the Rs 50 crore-contract for constructing the ancillary plant buildings at the project site.
As much as 4,000 tonnes of steel components, designed with a heavy load bearing capacity with a mainframe structure to support the full load, are expected to be used for the construction of these buildings.
Construction of the power train facility, press shop, and assembly line is also in progress. If everything goes as per schedule, critical infrastructure is expected to be in place by this November.
Sources said Tata Motors is using multiple vendors to expedite the project.
Among the tasks which have already been completed are: fencing, construction of inner roads, compound walls, and pre-fabricated sheds. Work on the main building has also started.
The work of laying underground cables for broadband connectivity is also in progress near the site. The state government has also initiated a survey of widening of the roads leading to the site from the Sanand-Viramgam highway.
Tata Motors has roped in its leading private shareholder, Shapoorji Pallonji & Com pany (SPCL) for construction of the Nano plant on 1,100 acres of land, which once belonged to Anand Agiculture University (AAU).
But, dismantling components from the unfinished plant at Singur to the Sanand site is expected to take at least a year in view of the distance involved and the complexity of the machinery and the plant components.
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