Team Blitz India
NEW DELHI: Tata Motors has won an arbitral award of Rs 765.78 crore plus interest as compensation for its investment in Singur, the erstwhile site for the production of the Nano.
The company, in a customary filing with the stock exchange on October 30, said that in respect of the arbitration proceedings between Tata Motors Ltd (TML) and West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation Ltd (WBIDC), a threemember Arbitral Tribunal had disposed of by a unanimous award in favour of TML.
With the final arbitral award, the arbitral proceedings have come to an end, the company said.
Tata Motors is entitled to recover from the WBIDC a sum of Rs 765.78 crore with interest thereon at 11 per cent per annum from September 1, 2016, until actual recovery. With interest, the compensation to Tata Motors could be in excess of Rs 1,350 crore as on date.
The company is also entitled to recover Rs 1 crore from WBIDC towards the cost of the proceedings. The arbitral award is yet another chapter in the Singur saga starting in 2006 when Tata Motors announced the Nano project.
The project was marked by sporadic disruptions but an indefinite agitation backed by Mamata Banerjee (then in the Opposition in the state) for the return of land to the “unwilling” land losers ultimately resulted in Tata Motors relocating the project to Sanand in Gujarat in 2008.
Tata Motors had invested more than Rs 1,800 crore in establishing the plant that was almost ready to roll out the cars.