KOLKATA: The Marxist government of India’s West Bengal state appealed on Tuesday for an end to protests against a plant building the world’s cheapest car.

The call came after Ratan Tata, chairman of the Tata conglomerate which owns the plant, warned last week he would move the factory out of the state if protests and an atmosphere of “tension, violence and disruption” continued.

“Opposition parties must change their attitude or our state will suffer a setback in its industrial rejuvenation,” West Bengal Chief Minister Budhadev Bhattacherjee said in state capital Kolkata.

The Marxists have been energetically wooing industry to set up shop in the impoverished state to create jobs. Ratan Tata said he would carry through with his threat even though Tata Motors has invested $350 million in the project to make the $2,500 car, billed as the world’s cheapest.

Local media reports said Tata Motors, part of the sprawling Tata Group, was giving the state government two weeks to bring the situation under control at the plant at Singur on the outskirts of Kolkata. Tata officials declined comment.

Activists have said they would only call off the often violent protests at the plant if the government returned 400 acres (160 hectares) taken from farmers who have not accepted any compensation.

The government acquired 997 acres of land for the project but activists insist the project needs only about 600 acres. The factory is 85 per cent completed according to the state government.

Scores of demonstrators blocked roads near the factory northwest of Kolkata for a third day Tuesday as riot police protected the factory premises. Late Monday, the head of the opposition Trinamool Congress Mamata Banerjee, who launched an “indefinite” protest on Sunday at the plant, said no talks would take place to resolve the row until the land was given back.

“Our agitation will be intensified if the government does not consider our demand,” she warned. Bhattacharjee, however, said the government could not “return the land as the law of the country does not allow us to do so.” But he said they had a rehabilitation package ready for the farmers. Even if the factory is shut down, Tata may still be able to meet its goal of getting the Nano into showrooms by October as 4,000 to 5,000 cars have already been built at the company’s plants elsewhere, reported the Economic Times.