Tamil Nadu has hands full with new industrial projects on anvil

NEW DELHI: EVEN as the Tamil Nadu government is formulating a New Industrial Policy to make the state No. 1 in industrialisation in India, it is close to attracting and launching new industrial projects.

Foremost among it is the proposal to construct a second software park, following the success of the first such venture, Tidel Park.

The state-owned Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (Tidco) will join hands with Jurang Town Corporation (JTC), Singapore to take up the construction of the software park, Mr S M Velusamy, minister for industries and commercial taxes told the state legislature while tabling the policy on major industries.

A market survey has clearly established a projected demand for quality space of 3.6 million sq ft by 2003. The state government has allotted 40.19 acres of land adjacent to Tidel Park to implement the Tidel-2 project.

While the preparation of a detailed project report is in progress, an agreement is to be signed shortly with JTC for implementing the project.

In addition to the Tidel Biotech Incubator Park, Tidco is also setting up a state-of-the-art Bioinformatics and Genomics Centre at a project cost of Rs 20 crore with Dr P Senapathy from the US. Tidco’s board has approved the equity investment of Rs 2-crore in this venture.

The Biotech Incubator Park in Chennai is coming up over an extent of five acres of land and will provide complete technical and other services under one roof.

The project, being implemented at an estimated cost of Rs 62.5 crore with technical assistance from Cornell University, USA, is expected to attract investment of Rs 1,000 crore from 50 new companies.

Meanwhile, a few large scale industrial projects are set to come up in the southern districts of the state. These include the Hi-Tech Park at Nanguneri and the construction of an atomic power plant at Koodankulam.

And the government is now gearing up to provide better infrastructure facilities including hotels, housing colonies and speciality hospitals in the region.

Tidco proposes to establish SPA-Resort, a relatively new concept catching up in the hospitality industry all over the world. About 30 acres of land near Kanyakumari has been identified. An estimated investment of Rs 100 crore will go in establishing the resort, which will become one of the landmarks in Tamil Nadu.

Further, the Tamil Nadu Newsprint and Papers (TNPL) is expected to take up improvement schemes at a cost of Rs 90 crore during 2002-03. The state holds about 35 per cent equity stake in the company.

The improvements include upgradation of paper machine-I at a cost of Rs 25 crore, paper machine-II at a cost of Rs 30 crore, increasing capacity of wood pulp at Rs 25 crore and installing a cutting machine at Rs 10 crore. TNPL is estimated to earn a turnover of Rs 555.56 crore and a profit before tax of Rs 65 crore (provisional) for the year 2001-02.

Yet another state-owned entity, Sipcot will step up its marketing activities for disposing of lands in its possession in different parts of the state, with Siruseri Software Park near Chennai receiving greater attention. Development of apparel park and leather products complex will be the other new initiatives during the year.

The minister further said, the new industrial policy will lay special emphasis on development of thrust areas like bio-technology, IT, telecom, pharmaceuticals and food processing.

Pointing out that the state’s main failings in industrialisation has been the poor percentage of conversion from announcement/proposal to implementation.

An executive committee, chaired by the chief secretary, will co-ordinate the efforts of the government and Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and focus on specific steps needed to accelerate industrial development, simplification of procedures for approvals and inspections.