South Indian investors keen to set up industries in Tripura

Agartala, Apr 3 (UNI) Kerala based Malabar Rubber Company and Andhra Pradesh based AEG software development group have expressed their interest to invest in Tripura.

Tripura Industry Minister Jitendra Choudhury told UNI over phone from Coimbatore that both the concerns had met Chief Minister Manik Sarkar and him separately yesterday and proposed to invest about Rs 6000 crore in the rubber sector.

He pointed out that Malabar Rubber has been collecting raw rubber sheets from Tripura and sending it to Kerala for processing and finally transporting back to Kolkata for marketing in Eastern and North Indian states.

''Now Malabar group wants to set up rubber processing unit in Tripura to avoid the transportation cost of raw materials as well as to minimise the labour cost, as the state is having skilled labourers,'' Mr Choudhury stated.

Meanwhile, AEG group wants to set up an IT Park in the state and to develop the state as another IT destination, he said adding, ''We made it clear that the state government wanted to explore the employment opportunity for the qualified youths and the investors should take care of that aspect also.'' Mr Choudhury has also invited Coimbatore base Shakti Sugar Limited to make investment in Tripura.

''The group has steel factory, fruit processing unit and automobile parts manufacturing units in country and abroad, besides sugar production and now they are interested to invest in bamboo, rubber and gas based units in the state,'' he said.

Both the Chief Minister and Industry minister along with 33 other leaders of Tripura CPI(M) have been in Coimbatore since March 29 to attend the party congress of CPI (M).

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