Tata Motors should spell out if it has any proposal to produce something other than the Nano from the Sanand plant, Gujarat chief secretary D J Pandian says, adding that in that case the special status granted to the project cannot continue. Pandian feels the facility is being underutilised with production going down. Pandian, due to retire at the end of this month, was one of the key bureaucrats behind the emergence of Gujarat as a petroleum hub and the setting up of the Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay Petroleum University when Narendra Modi was chief minister. As principal secretary (energy and petrochemicals) he was its chairman when it was launched in 2007, and now is a member on its board of governors. Excerpts from an interview: Nano “The government wants Nano facility to be fully utilised. The production has not been much for a year or so. The ball is now in their court. If they want to manufacture something else in the same facility, say trucks or buses, they should come up with a fresh proposal, which will be taken as regular mega project. The status of special project cannot be continued, as it was given only for Nano for shifting from Singur to Sanand, because it was shifting all the way from West Bengal. So it was given incentive on higher scale [most incentives were in the form of soft loans at low interest, lower power tariff, land and stamp duty waiver]. We are telling them 100 per cent incentive. use this facility, but with change in terms. They have to come for negotiation. What is important for us is that the factory should run and give employment. that will create a lot of indirect employment. The industry is very competitive. Honda, Hero, Ford. they are all coming here and expanding. provided you take the incentive as per regular mega project. Nano incentive was little different.” Vibrant Gujarat “The aspiration of people has gone up tremendously, the feeling of doing business by themselves. Those among diaspora have started thinking and investing in Gujarat. They want to give something back to Gujarat and keep some resources available in Gujarat so that they can do business. We were not depending only on industrial investment coming through the Vibrant summits. We went on investing in social sectors, like increasing classroom education; 40,000 teachers were recruited in the last three years.” English and IT “Except for financial services, in IT and enabled services, we are very weak. Gujarat is traditionally not well placed in spoken English. Now it is picking up. We missed the first generation of IT revolution. Ten years ago, our eyes opened and we quickly introduced English. Special English teaching has been conducted. We cannot be compared to Bangalore and Andhra Pradesh (in IT), but compared to others we are not doing bad.” Demographics “With all the labour force coming in, demography will certainly change. Ahmedabad has already changed. It has become metropolitan. You can see more of north and south Indians. Five years down the line, some of the Gujaratis who will pick up good skills with English will end up in New Zealand, Australia, the US and Canada. The vacuum has to be filled with somebody else. Gujarat absorbs migrants. They add to the economy.” Gas production “GSPC (Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation) has so many activities. Gradually, over the last five years, GSPC has exited from exploration, except for KG (Krishna-Godavari) basin. There are a few potential good blocks in Gujarat like Tarapur-Cambay. They should concentrate there. The exit from the KG basin will depend on who will be the technology partner. We have to track deep and for that we need very good technology and a partner who can drill the well quickly and complete it efficiently. We have a robust infrastructure. But production has been delayed. Every day the delay costs a lot of money, because in the last five years we have done this exploration through bank finances, which means interest. So the earlier the production, the better it is.” Expansion without KG gas “There is no bondage [for network expansion even without gas availability from KG basin]. We can expand and start an industrial estate, for example, in Godhra and extended network there and in [tribal] Dahod as well. With the availability of piped gas, small-scale industries like glass or ceramic can be launched at non-industrial places.” Metro rail “Unfortunately, we are delayed by 10 years. So many things have happened. But now a good team is there. I P Gautam [retired IAS officer and MD of Metro-Link Express for Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad] is there. We will be able to push.” Other big projects “Maruti Suzuki has arrived [in Mandal-Bechraji SIR]. They have already taken land and measurement is going on. Honda motorcycle project is on [in Halol]. Honda four-wheelers [plant] will come up soon. Hero American paper company is coming up at Sanand while Nivea has just opened [in Sanand]. Ford Motors has already commissioned [in Sanand].”
