An Indian Lee Iacocca

The cat is finally out of the bag. It is official; at least that’s what the grapevine says.

Tata Motors have roped in Mamatha Banerjee as CEO after much persuasion. Apparently she has perfected to art of divining the exact type and extent of infrastructure that an automobile company needs, to run its business profitably.

One of her initial acts would be prune the Jamshedpur unit. She has made precise estimates and has decided that the Tatas can run the unit viably with just fifty percent of the land and buildings currently with them. The rest will be distributed among the general populace. After which she would turn her attention to Pune and thereafter to Dharwad and all their other units.

The word is that she has a radically new proposal – a couple of them in fact.

The first is to build all future Tata Motors factories in the sea. She says the Arabian Sea is a better choice because it is less prone to cyclones. By turning to the sea, she says it would solve several problems in one go. No one could possibly have any objection to building a factory in the sea, so resettlement would never be an issue. Generally factories need a lot of water and the sea would therefore be an ideal location. When asked about salinity problems, she said this was not a major issue. Giant desalination plants were the answer. This would enable the Tatas to discharge their social commitment to the country even better. The excess water could be supplied to nearby villages and towns on the coast.

He second idea could prove to be just as revolutionary. She has mooted the idea of gradually shifting all the existing plants to the Thar Desert, where large tracts of land would be available. Here, according to her, the main saving would be on the energy front because she would insist that they use only solar power to run the factories.

Another plan is to make virtual cars from virtual factories in the virtual world of the internet. That way there would never be any problem like land acquisition, pollution etc.

The Tatas are also mulling over the possibility of using her expertise at Tata Steel and, at a later date, in the other group companies as well.

A report from the US said that auto majors, General Motors and Toyota are viewing these developments with interest and some amount of trepidation. Industry watchers feel that it is only a matter of time before they make overtures to her.

Ms Banerjee is also rumoured to have agreed to sign up as strategy consultant to the Left parties for their election campaign. Left Party leaders feel that they have much to learn from the lady politico to revive their flagging fortunes at the national level. Her Singur and Nandigram successes have convinced them that they are on to a sure thing if only she is by their side in the other states when they attempt similar operations to revolutionise the Indian economy.