As part of efforts to give a push to the micro industries, steps have been initiated for the establishment of a multi-storied industrial estate at Thirumazhisai near Chennai at a cost of Rs 20 crore, according to P. Mohan, Minister for Rural Industries, Government of Tamil Nadu.
He said efforts were also on to form two industrial estates near Coimbatore to house 600 industrial units.
Inaugurating the 14th International Industrial Trade Fair Coimbatore (INTEC 2013) here on Thursday, he said in the past industrial estates were formed without even making the necessary land acquisition. But now the Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa has ordered that land should be selected at the time of formation of industrial estates and has ordered the creation of a land bank of 2000 acres to facilitate the establishment of industrial estates.
The Minister said with a view to pay special attention to the needs of the micro enterprises, the process of establishing a multi storied industrial estate at Thirumazhisai near Chennai for micro industries has been initiated at a cost of Rs 20 crore.
He said in Coimbatore also, steps have been taken for establishing industrial estates close to Avinashi Road and Tiruchi road to house 600 industrial units.
He said in Tamil Nadu, the cumulative investment made by the MSME sector exceeded Rs 48,000 crore and the nearly 8.44 lakh registered units employed more than 58 lakh workers. He claimed that though there was economic slowdown globally, because of the steps taken by the Chief Minister, the industrial and services sectors in the state were working well.
Mohan said responding to the pleas made by industry associations, the Chief Minister had recently announced reliefs amounting to about Rs 97 crore. He said because of the boost given to the MSMEs by the State Government, exports have reached Rs 20,000 crore.
S. M. Velusamy, Mayor of Coimbatore Corporation, pointing out how the Technology Upgradation Fund scheme (TUF) benefited the textile industries, wanted a similar scheme to assist the MSMEs.
Pollachi V. Jayaraman, Deputy Speaker of Tamil Nadu Assembly, suggested Codissia to take steps for the establishment of an engineering college and a polytechnic college to meet the needs for qualified technical manpower to run the industries in the region.
S.Damodaran, Minister for Agriculture, Tamil Nadu, said faced with acute labour shortage, mechanisation of farm operations had become a necessity and the State Government has allotted about Rs 124 crore to supply farm implements at subsidised rates. He urged the industries in the region to utilise this opportunity to manufacture innovative farm implements that would make farm operations less labour intensive.
K.Dhanavel, Principal Secretary, MSME, Government of Tamil Nadu, said the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) accounted for 10 per cent of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP). The Chief Minister had recently unveiled a 10-point scheme for the development of the MSME sector under which capital subsidy has been raised from 15 per cent to 25 per cent. If entrepreneurs came together to form industrial estates outside cities and re-located their units from within the cities, the Government would offer a subsidy of up to 75 per cent of the cost of the estate formation or up to Rs 15 crore.
P. Udayakumar, Director, Planning and Marketing, NSIC, New Delhi, urged the MSME sector to capitalise on the decision of the Centre making purchase of the needs of PSUs and Government departments up to certain limit from MSMEs mandatory.
Others who spoke included M. Karunakaran, Coimbatore District Collector, R.Ramachandran, President, Codissia and D.Gandhikumar, Chairman, INTEC 2013.