Calcutta, May 11: Faced with the prospect of a Tata project going out of the state, the Bengal government is considering invoking the land acquisition act, which it had stopped doing after flare-ups in Nandigram and Singur.

Tata Metaliks, a Tata Steel subsidiary, was the first private company to propose a steel plant in the state before at least a dozen others, including Jindal and Bhushan, joined the queue.

Over three years have passed, but the state is yet to provide land for the project in Kharagpur, where the company is successfully running a large pig iron plant.

After knocking every possible government door, the Tata Metaliks management has decided to pursue a similar project in Karnataka.

The Bengal government said the issue would be sorted out soon.

“We have tried the direct purchase model there. But it has not worked. The state will go for land acquisition after the panchayat polls,” a top commerce and industries ministry official said.

Tata Metaliks is a Tata Steel subsidiary where the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) also has small stake. It manufactures pig iron that goes into forging and casting industry mainly. The Rs 1,000-crore company has two plants, the older one is at Kharagpur while the other one is at Redi in Maharashtra.

The company had wanted to put up a 500,000-tonne steel plant next to its Kharagpur unit and sought 500 acres. The state asked the company to settle for 350 acres and it agreed.

But the WBIDC has so far managed to directly buy from owners only 200 acres and that, too, in patches.

“Because of small landholdings, the direct purchase method is turning out to be very time consuming,” the official pointed out.

The aftershock of Singur, where land was acquired through the 1894 land acquisition act for the Tata Motors project, could be a reason why the government waited so long to take the same route. In Nandigram, too, it had burnt its fingers by trying to use the law to acquire land for a chemical hub.

The law gives little choice to the landowner but to sell it to the government. In the direct purchase model, the owner can say no to a deal at any stage of the negotiations.

Tata Metaliks managing director Harsh Jha, who had earlier said the company would not wait beyond July 2008 for the Bengal project, recently said any project that shows better promise would be pursued more.

He added that Tata Metaliks’ proposal for a 800,000-tonne steel plant had been approved by the Karnataka government in three days.

The company, however, has sought captive iron ore mines in Karnataka and said that the plant would not be built minus them.

Tata Metaliks’ Bengal plan, however, does not only hinge on getting the land. A competing company has bought 60 acres where the Metaliks plant would have come up.

A state official said it was aware of the development.

With the delay, the project cost has gone up from Rs 1,000 crore to Rs 1,500 crore.