Land survey begins to end Nano deadlock

By Sujoy Dhar

KOLKATA, India (Reuters) - Authorities in West Bengal began a survey on Wednesday to find excess land around a factory building the super-cheap Nano car as part of efforts to end protests by farmers unwilling to give up their farmlands.

Officials in West Bengal hope to defuse the row over the factory by returning some of the acquired land to farmers while rehabilitating others on new plots.

Tata Motors has suspended work at the factory because of the stand-off and threatened to look at alternative sites after farmers backed by the local opposition party blocked roads leading to the plant and threatened workers.

After days of negotiations, the state's communist government and the opposition Trinamool Congress party, representing the farmers, agreed on a joint committee that would conduct the survey and return excess land around the plant to farmers.

"We are surveying the area to identify land which can be returned to farmers. We will show the government the plots," said Rabindranath Bhattacharya, a Trinamool leader on the committee.

But the move is no guarantee that Tata would begin work at the plant in Singur, an hour's drive from Kolkata.

The stand-off would likely undermine production capacity but is unlikely to delay the planned October launch of the Nano, billed as the world's cheapest car, as some units could come from existing Nano plants.

The Nano protests reflect a larger standoff between industry and farmers unwilling to give up land in a country where two-thirds of the population depend on farming. Politicisation of farmers' resentment has further complicated the issue.