Former corporate public relations professional Niira Radia in her first media interview in over 12 years and the first ever on the Tata group shared snippets from the time she worked with industrialist and philanthropist Ratan Tata, who died at 86 on October 9.
The launch of Tata Motors’ hatchback Indica, the big-ticket acquisition of the steel major Corus, the purchase of Jaguar Land Rover from Ford, and the launch of the ‘Rs 1 lakh car’ Nano, among others – Ms Radia shared stories behind these milestones of the Tata group as a global enterprise headquartered in India.
“He was a dreamer and a visionary. India was his national pride. He loved his country, the people. He’d say it was so important to globalise. ‘The only reason why I need to go global is to bring technology to India and upgrade our own companies to make better platforms’, Ratan Tata would say,” Ms Radia told NDTV in an exclusive interview today.
She explained why Ratan Tata decided on making the ‘Rs 1 lakh car’ Nano, a statement which has been narrated many times over the years.
“He wanted something for the common person. He wanted a person on a bike to not get wet in the rain, for example. A newspaper had said Ratan Tata wanted a Rs 1 lakh car. But we had never given a number,” said the former chairperson of the defunct company Vaishnavi Corporate Communications, who had an inside view of some of the most crucial decisions made by the Tata group.
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On why Ratan Tata chose Singur in West Bengal as the site for building the Nano, Ms Radia said the industrialist simply had his heart set on Bengal to create jobs and bring industrialization.
“He announced Singur. It really surprised me because we were not told about the location earlier. It was natural for him. Why shouldn’t it be Singur? He was for development, not to play politics,” Ms Radia said.
Tata group was in talks on the big-ticket Corus deal when the huge battle over the Nano plant in Bengal erupted, Ms Radia told NDTV, adding they were in Bengal in the midst of two critical decisions – a bid was going on for Corus, and there was trouble on the ground in Singur.
“Why should the Rs 1-lakh car be not built in Bengal? His dream was to industrialise the state… I think this Rs 1 lakh number was there because he must have done his calculation at that time, that it may be possible. Of course he was criticised too. But the man had a dream, he had a vision. Those were more important,” Ms Radia said.
“He was disappointed,” she added, on the Nano not reaching heights Ratan Tata may have envisaged.
“The price point changed subsequently. I want to stay focused on who he was, not the business side. When he went to Bengal, he felt it needed to be industrialised. He wanted to create jobs. The whole road from Kolkata to Singur could have been developed beautifully. It (Nano project) went to Sanand (in Gujarat). Today, Sanand is like Gurugram,” Ms Radia said.
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The Singur problem was not about the Nano or Ratan Tata, she said.
“The fight was a political fight. Singur was the constituency of a leader of the then ruling party… We visited many other states to look for a site. We were also called by Punjab, Karnataka, many others… We went to Gujarat as it was a bit more industrialised and moving towards development, so it would be easy to set up there,” said Ms Radia, who handled public relations for the Tata group between 2000 and 2012.
Ms Radia headed Vaishnavi Communications during the most critical time when the Tata group decided to consolidate its brand at the group level. She also remained a dear friend and a close confidante of Ratan Tata till his death.