Sulajja Firodia Motwani, MD, Kinetic Motors said that she is certainly sad that the project is being pulled out of Singur. “It could have had been a great showcase for a developing state like West Bengal. The Indian consumers are waiting eagerly for the Nano, so this setback or delay certainly regretful”, she said.

Motwani still strongly backs the Nano story. “We are great believers in this project and in the Nano. This project is going to be a huge success. We would like to firmly stand behind Tata Motors and give them our best support ensuring that the project takes off quickly.  As far as Kinetic is concerned, our gear manufacturing facility has already come up at Ahmednagar and we should be in a position to supply the gears wherever they are required by Tata Motors,” she added.

According to Motwani, the suppliers who have setup facilities within Singur project would be greatly affected. However, her company will not be affected, she said. “For Kinetic we had planned to setup two plants. One was a mother plant at Ahmednagar which would do the gear manufacturing and later as volumes would ramp up we were going to setup an assembly unit at Singur. To that extent our current investments are at our current factory at Ahmednagar. So we are not greatly affected by the change in location. However we do hope that the project gets back online quickly and we are able to supply the gears at the earliest,” Motwani added.

Surinder Kapoor, MD, Sona Koyo feels that though it was a painful decision for Ratan Tata; people have been expecting the car to be launched this month. "Tata’s paramount concern was ensuring the security and safety of the people. Going forward we will support Tata Motors in which ever direction they go, as vendors to the Nano project."  

Here is a verbatim transcript of the exclusive interview with Surinder Kapoor on CNBC-TV18. Also watch the accompanying video.

Q: Have you been given any official confirmation on this?

A: Not yet, we were waiting for this information and we are yet to decide with the Tatas where they are heading towards. Though it was a painful decision for Ratan Tata, people have been expecting the car to be launched this month. The world has been waiting for the Nano to come. But Tata’s paramount concern was ensuring the security and safety of the people. Going forward we will support Tata Motors in which ever direction they go as vendors to the Nano project.

Q: This is on for over a month and a half and we understand there is a large vendor’s meet which will take place on the October 16 - has there been any clarity on what the road ahead looks like in terms of where the plant could actually shift, has there been any clarity officially given to you on the volumes from Pant Nagar, anything that you could share with us?

A: We will hear about it on the October 16 and we are looking forward to that meeting so we know the clear way ahead. I suspect that there will be some production at Pant Nagar initially, but it cannot be at high volumes for Tata Motors or its vendors. It’s going to be have put on a very fast project that we come up with the car and continue to support Tata.

Q: We have heard that Gujarat has been a preferred destination as far as the mother plant is concerned, a couple of weeks ago we heard about Dharwad in Karnataka, what would make strategic sense to your mind at this time, General Motors has a facility in Halol in Gujarat, Tata has a facility in Dharwad, from a strategic sense, of these two locations, what would make more sense?

A: The location must ensure that it is a place where growth can take place, with enough availability of land, state government support and incentives provided would probably play a very important role. There is another element which is the time factor and, one would have to look at what are the existing infrastructures and do something there to start off. So we will find out what Tata’s are going to advice us to do going forward on the meeting.

Q: How much of loss will your company have to incur because of this move out of Singur because from what we know, was your equipment was in transit at the beginning of this month and possibly may have also set up there?

A: We don’t have any manufacturing facilities set up yet, we only have land in possession and building and I don’t know what the legal issues involved are. We will begin to study as to what the legal implications of owning a land which we won’t have and investments we made in terms of infrastructure. This is not a large amount but it is about Rs 6 crore which is not too small, but we will have to examine jointly with Tata’s. I can’t really speculate as to what we will be doing as a company going forward but we will jointly review it and take appropriate steps.

Q: How much revenue were you expecting for your company from this project?

A: In the first phase we were at about Rs 35 crore to Rs 40 crore, but this is not the project for today. However it's successful and yields could keep on coming and they would be substantial. My own guess has been that at least a million of these cars would be sold in India in the next 3-5 years. So then the revenues become fairly significant, but this is a project which is more of a long term unique, and the world is awaiting this car to come out.

Q: What does it do for the cost of the project itself, because you were setting up in Singur, now you will have to move, raw material costs have escalated in the mean while, would you be able to deliver the parts at cost that you decided with the Tatas or have the escalated?

A: I don’t think I am in a position to say anything on that, we don’t know what the locations are or what the logistic costs are going to be, we will work that up jointly with Tatas on this.