Tatas turn screw on, keep staff away from Singur, state guessing

“Our workers are not attending work today. We are assessing the situation,” a Tata Motors statement said.

Although a High Court judge ordered the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to clear the access road to the plant, the police put off action saying it did not have a copy of the order. Hooghly District Magistrate Neelam Meena confirmed that not a single employee turned up for work on Friday.

The pro-farmer NGO, Khet Mazdoor Sangathan, which had held up the Tata bus on Thursday, said its members had stayed away from the gates today. “They have (the Tata staff) themselves decided not to come to work. They are trying to build pressure on us and are trying to project us as anti-industry,” its leader Anuradha Talwar said.

The few casual labourers who had come to work were shooed away by the agitators. Since Mamata Banerjee began her dharna on Durgapur Expressway outside the plant, attendance of casual and contractors workers had dwindled but Tata Motors had been ferrying its employees using a longer route.

The NH2 stretch between Dankuni and Palsit remained closed on Friday. Vehicles were diverted to the old Grand Trunk Road from Dankuni.

The road blockade figured in petitions before two separate benches of the High Court, with one bench directing the NHAI to ensure free movement of traffic “immediately”.

Justice Nadira Patherya, hearing a writ petition filed by a transport operators association, said the NHAI could seek assistance from the state government to restore the free flow of traffic.

A division bench of Chief Justice SS Nijjar and Justice Dipankar Datta, hearing a PIL filed on Thursday, directed the state and NHAI on Friday to file their affidavits within two weeks on the state of the Expressway.