CHENNAI: Strongly denying that manufacturers were leaving Tamil Nadu and moving to other States, Tamil Nadu Industries Minister P Thangamani on Friday said the State ranked second in GDP output after Maharashtra and that its growth rate of 7.94 per cent this year was more than the national growth rate of 4.94 per cent.
Replying to a call attention motion in Assembly, the minister said the GDP output of Maharashtra was `8,43,565 crore while Tamil Nadu’s stood at `4, 51,313 crore. The growth rate in the manufacturing sector of India was -0.71 per cent in 2013-14, while TN registered growth of 3.53 per cent in the same period.
Total investments attracted by Tamil Nadu in 2011 during the DMK regime was `7,38,652 crore, while investments attracted by the AIADMK government in 2014 is `9,97,034 crore which is around `2,000 crore more, the minister said. The total investment in Tamil Nadu till 2011 was `3,33,010 crore while the State attracted foreign investments of `4,50,174 crore till the year 2014 as per the statistics provided by the DIPP under the Union Commerce and Industries, Thangamani said and pointed out that there was an addition of `1,17,164 crore.
The number of factories in 2013 was 40,354, while in 2014 it was 42,000, which showed that the number of factories was increasing. In the year 2011, under DMK rule, the number of employed persons was 84,21,000, but this had risen to 1.6 crore in the last three years under the AIADMK regime, proving that job opportunities were rising.
Denying that there were no new MoUs after the AIADMK came to power, Thangamani said 33 MoUs were signed by the State government to the tune of `31,706 crore and `14,305 crore had been invested. Besides, without MoUs through the guidance bureau, investments to the tune of Rs 28,000 crore had been attracted, the minister said. Thangamani also denied that there were no new investments in the public sector and pointed out that former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa had announced that TNPL would start a new factory at Srirangam with an investment of `1,500 crore.
Further, the Minister said automobile majors Ford and Daimler had written to the State government stating that they would not move away from Tamil Nadu, and added that the closing down of Nokia factory was a result of a stringent activity of levying tax by the UPA government in which the DMK was a constituent.
There are 2,542 Japanese companies in India, out of which 523 were functioning in Tamil Nadu amounting to one-fifth of their total factories, he said. The growth rate of Tamil Nadu was 13.96 per cent in 2005-2006 during Jayalalithaa’s rule, but it had gone down to 6 and 5 in the subsequent DMK government, the minister said. Under the DMK regime, MoUs for 42,868 crore was signed, out of which investments for Rs 15,593 did not materialise.
Thangamani also said that the Hyundai factory was set up in Tamil Nadu through the efforts of Jayalalithaa in March 2005. When the metro rail project was started in Tamil Nadu by the DMK government, a coach factory to cater to it was set up in AP, which showed that it was the DMK government which had lost opportunities for drawing new factories to other States. Further, he said Ford and Daimler had written to the State stating that they would not move away, and added that the closing down of Nokia factory was a result of a stringent tax levied by the UPA government.