Chennai: With industrial bodies and trade unions worried over a recent report by the World Economic Forum that Chennai’s growth rate has had a massive fall from 13.96 per cent in 2005-06 to around 4 per cent last year, the top brass of the state industry ministry opined that the situation is not so grim.The gloom in the sector has got compounded with the most recent exit of mobile handset giant Nokia and the closure activities initiated by Foxconn.
Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, a senior bureaucrat said, “We knew that global electronics major Foxconn will leave Chennai due to the retrospective tax Act introduced by the Centre, forcing Nokia to leave Tamil Nadu. Foxconn was dependent upon Nokia that manufactured close to 15 million phones per month and it was a ripple effect of the Centre’s action.”
To a query on the World Economic Forum report, the official replied that TN is a leading state in the country in terms of the number of industries. “It is now time to look at sustainable growth. States like Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka are only now expanding their industrial sector, whereas TN is a leader, first in terms of the number of factories and first in terms of employees employed in factories. Other states have natural resources like coal and offer concessions to attract new investors, whereas TN is above these states in terms of industrial output,” the official said.
However, the official admitted that there were some issues in providing power to automobile industries, but these have been overcome. He also clarified that reports on industries going to other states are only based on hearsay.TN industries minister P. Thangamani challenged opposition legislators on Saturday to prove their
allegations that industries were leaving the state. “TN has the maximum number of Japanese firms and more Japanese companies are showing interest in TN for its industry-friendly policies,” Mr Thangamani told DC. For the sake of politicking, the opposition took up the Nokia issue and were making baseless statements, he said, adding that the state’s unique automobile policy and biotech policy had helped TN hold on to its position.
In the past three years, Rs 44,402 crore of investments had reached TN, according to FDI statistics of the Union government, he noted. Of the total 2,542 Japanese industries in the country, one-fifth (523 companies) operate from TN and we expect more new companies in 2015, he said. We have passed government orders sanctioning '100 crore for the global investors’ meet in May, he added.
In 2013, there were 40,354 industries in the state, and now the number has crossed the 42,000 mark, so where is the question of industries leaving the state, he wondered. During the previous DMK regime, as per the official records created during their regime, the total number of employees in the state were 84.21 lakh and now the state had 1.60 crore employees till 2013.
Cutting across party lines, the opposition, including the DMK, DMDK and Left legislators are not buying the government version.“The state is losing its aura as an industrial hub. Foxconn has announced compensation for employees to close down; there are also cases of contract employees being given pink slips,” said Perambur MLA A. Soundarajan, who is also general secretary of CITU.
“When you are not given adequate time in the Assembly sessions, how can you give specifics? A draft explaining the present industrial scenario is getting ready and we will submit it to the government, seeking necessary action,” the MLA added.
