CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu is leading the way in making India’s demographic bulge into an actual advantage with 43% of Indian female factory employees working in the state, which is home to 5% of the national population, according to a report by New York Times.
The report states that Tamil Nadu, having a population of 72 million, is now succeeding in ways that have eluded India as a whole.
The national government started subsidising electronics manufacturing across the country in 2021, setting off a gold rush in places like Noida, next to New Delhi. “But, for Tamil Nadu, that incentive is not an essential lure. TRB Rajaa, Tamil Nadu’s Minister of Industries, can rattle off the state’s inbuilt advantages: schools, transport, engineering graduates,” the report said.
The report also said that parts of Tamil Nadu are already working as industrial champions. A long belt of car and car-parts manufacturers stretches down the coast from its capital, Chennai. The western Coimbatore valley has factories specialise in die-casting and pump manufacturing. There is a knitwear cluster in Tiruppur, and the country’s biggest maker of matchsticks is in Sivakasi.
“It is striking that India is plunging into such high-end goods such as the iPhone. India has never become internationally competitive making things like T-shirts or sneakers, getting its clock cleaned by smaller and formerly less developed countries like Bangladesh and Vietnam,” the report said.
It also highlighted the building of huge dorminatories at Sipcot for Foxconn workers, mostly women.