TN unveils new Industrial Policy

Chennai, Nov 5 (UNI) The Tamil Nadu Government today unveiled its new Industrial Policy, promising to create an additional two million jobs by 2011, create a land bank of 10,000 acres for industrial parks and encourage Special Economic Zones (SEZ) in the industrially backward blocks.

Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, also the Industries Minister, unveiled the policy at the Secretariat this evening, in the presence of newly appointed Industries Secretary M F Farooqui, who had on Saturday replaced Mr Sakthikanta Dass.

The 'Vision 2011' in the policy promised to raise contribution to GSDP from the manufacturing sector to 27 per cent from 21 per cent by 2011 and double the State's annual exports to Rs 140,000 crore.

''Our mission is to accelerate human development in Tamil Nadu by maximising investment, output, growth, employment and manufacturing competitiveness through infrastructure and human resources development in industries and services sector,'' the policy said.

The key objectives of the policy were to position Tamil Nadu as the most attractive investment destination to facilitate industry capturing a larger share of world trade in goods/services, reform regulatory processes, integrate existing industrial clusters with global supply chains and develop human resources and intellectual capital to world standards.

In the next five years, a land bank of 10,000 acres of land would be developed with quality infrastructure facilities for setting up industrial parks in the state. These lands would be developed in dry and barren lands and agricultural lands would be avoided, it said.

It said SIPCOT would develop a Nanotechnology Park on the lines of science parks in developed countries. The park would be located in about 2,000 acres of land and would have SEZ and DTA zones, it said.

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