CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu has the highest number of factories in the country and employs the largest factory workforce, according to RBI data for the financial year 2014. The Reserve Bank of India, for the first time, has published a Handbook of Statistics on state-level data.
In terms of capital, Gujarat has been leading the country since 1991 with a cumulative investment of over E5.4 lakh crore in 2014. Maharashtra with E4.8 lakh crore and Tamil Nadu with an investment of E3.8 lakh crore came second and third in the list. Odisha and Uttar Pradesh took the fourth and fifth slots while pan-India figure for cumulative investment stood at E33 lakh crore. There are more than 2.24 lakh factories across the country of which 37,378 units are in Tamil Nadu, accounting for 17 per cent of all units. While the total number of factory workers exceeds 1 crore, TN alone employed over 16 lakh or 16% of the total workforce. Interestingly, Tamil Nadu overtook Maharashtra in the year 1999 and has maintained a good lead since then. Over the past 10 years, the number of new factories in Tamil Nadu grew by 77 per cent while Maharashtra saw a growth of only 54 per cent. The steady rise is indicative of the resilient industrial growth, particularly in the small and medium sector. It’s MSMEs that drive growth and employ in large numbers, says R Vaidyanathan, professor at IIM-Bengaluru.