M A I N   N E W S

Didn’t pay Rs 15-cr bribe, called off airlines project: Ratan Tata
Tribune News Service

Dehradun, November 15
Chairman of the Tata Group, Ratan Tata today said the group decided to retreat from Singur in (West Bengal) as it found itself caught in a crossfire of political views and a vitriolic campaign that would have eventually hurt the workers the most.

While replying to a volley of questions lobbed by the audience at the end of his lecture “India in the 21st Century: Opportunities and Challenges,” Ratan Tata said their staying put would have hurt the workers who would have been exposed to dead bodies, we chose not to bite the bullet and realised that we had come to a wrong place,” he said.

Narrating another incident, he said the group also dropped the domestic airlines project that it was contemplating with Singapore Airlines as partner, 12 years ago. He said: “Our project was shot down on flimsy grounds over a period of time that saw three prime ministers change. A particular individual thwarted our efforts, we decided to call it off. Later, a fellow industrialist remarked that we should have paid an amount of Rs 15 crore to the individual to see the project through.

But we never thought of it and I sleep a content man at night,” said Ratan Tata. He emphasised upon the need to put all actions under public scrutiny so that society becomes more ethical and said that this has been the trademark of the company. Tata was replying to a question posed by an industrialist asking him about the mantra for his company’s success.

Commenting on the 26/11 attack on the Taj Hotel in Mumbai, he said that innocent lives would not have been lost if systems had been in place, “Unfortunately, we tend to react after the incident happens, we need to be proactive and rather than analyse after the incident has taken place, we should take prompt steps before hand,” said Tata.