Jamshedpur, Feb. 6: Tata Motors today welcomed another batch of villagers from Singur in Bengal, who arrived in the steel city last night to see for themselves the company’s development initiatives for the community.

The 12-member team this time comprises representatives of different panchayat samitis in and around Singur. Earlier groups comprised land-owners and other apolotical villagers.

As on earlier occasions, the visitors were taken around the Jamshedpur plant of Tata Motors, which manufactures chassis for trucks. They were also taken to the test track of the plant, which seldom fails to impress onlookers.

But the group from Singur spent a lot more time today observing community initiatives of gram vikas kendra, a wing of Tata Motors which looks after community services.

At the integrated rural development centre in Khagripada village, the visitors interacted with village women and were visibly impressed with the income being generated by the Tussar silk weaving project, confided a Tata Motors executive. The visitors were then driven to the two show-piece panchayats of Dorkasai and Kalapathar, on the outskirts of Jamshedpur, where every household boasts of a low-cost toilet.

The team from Singur was also provided a ring-side view of tree-plantation drive and watershed management to improve the water-table. The initiative, claimed company executives, is bearing fruit. Above all, they said, the positive reaction of the visitors is helping restore the confidence of company officials, demoralised over media reports of opposition to the company’s small-car project at Singur.

One of the visitors candidly confessed that they had an entirely different idea of the Tatas before coming here.

Later, the team took part in an orientation programme organised on the premises of Parivar Kalyan Sansthan, a dispensary run and managed by Tata Motors in Telco Colony.

Last month another group from Singur comprising 23 men, women and teenagers, had arrived on a similar “familiarisation” mission.