writingonblog uncensored: TN revises model registration hub plan; sanctions...

writingonblog uncensored: TN revises model registration hub plan; sanctions...: C Shivakumar @ CHENNAI: The registration department has revised its plan to set up privately operated model registration hubs, by changing t...

TN revises model registration hub plan; sanctions ₹7.84 crore for five pilots

C Shivakumar @ CHENNAI:
The registration department has revised its plan to set up privately operated model registration hubs, by changing the locations of the proposed pilot centres, introducing a three-tier infrastructure model and altering the revenue-sharing arrangement between the Registration Department and private operators. It has also sanctioned Rs 7.84 crore for five hubs and extending their commissioning deadline to 180 days from the award of the contract.

According to Governmernt Order passed on October 28, the five model registration hubs will be located in Chennai North, Chennai Central, Chennai South, Chengalpattu and Coimbatore North, replacing the locations identified in the earlier tender — Ambattur, Thiruvanmiyur, T Nagar, Sriperumbudur and Coimbatore North.

The initiative shifts from a government-funded capital expenditure model to a managed-service arrangement under which a private operator will finance, establish, operate and maintain the facilities under a five-year contract. The operator will receive a fixed monthly fee determined through competitive bidding.

The Rs 7.84 crore allocation will also cover any shortfall if revenue from facilitation charges is insufficient to meet the operator's payments. The government has revalidated an earlier financial sanction for an Integrated Facilitation Centre in Chennai Central for this purpose.

Facilitation charges will remain Rs 2,000 for standard services, Rs 5,000 for Tatkal standard services, Rs 5,000 for premium services and Rs 10,000 for Tatkal premium services, apart from statutory stamp duty and registration fees.

Under the revised formula, the government will receive 80% of collections from standard and Tatkal standard services, while the operator will retain 20%. Revenue from premium services will be split equally. For Tatkal premium services, the government's share will be 65% and the operator's 35%.

Collections will be deposited into a dedicated account, with the operator's share paid first and the surplus adjusted against its monthly fee. Any deficit could be met from the sanctioned allocation.

The hubs will follow a three-tier infrastructure model based on registration volumes. The largest centres will have at least 8,000 sq ft and 20 workstations, the middle tier 5,000 sq ft and 15 workstations, and the smallest 3,000 sq ft and 10 workstations.

Facilities will include biometric verification, self-service kiosks, CCTV surveillance and digital queue management. The operator will be selected through a quality-cum-cost-based tender, with technical criteria carrying 70% of the score and the financial bid 30%.

Citizens will be able to register documents and marriages at the hubs irrespective of the jurisdiction of the relevant sub-registrar office. However, statutory approvals will remain with government officials.

writingonblog uncensored: Chennai-based TuTr Hyperloop partners L&T to expl...

writingonblog uncensored: Chennai-based TuTr Hyperloop partners L&T to expl...: CHENNAI: Chennai-based deep-tech start-up TuTr Hyperloop has partnered with engineering major Larsen & Toubro (L&T) to explore the d...

Chennai-based TuTr Hyperloop partners L&T to explore next-generation transport systems

CHENNAI:
Chennai-based deep-tech start-up TuTr Hyperloop has partnered with engineering major Larsen & Toubro (L&T) to explore the development and deployment of next-generation mobility technologies, seeking to translate indigenous propulsion technology into commercially viable transport and logistics applications.

The memorandum of understanding (MoU) provides a framework for the two organisations to jointly identify opportunities in emerging mobility systems, with individual projects to be pursued through separate agreements.

The collaboration combines TuTr Hyperloop’s expertise in indigenous electromagnetic propulsion and advanced mobility systems with L&T’s engineering, procurement and construction capabilities. The companies will assess applications across freight and logistics, port connectivity and industrial transportation, along with the infrastructure required to support them, according to a release.

The scope includes linear induction motor-based propulsion systems, vacuum tube infrastructure, pressure management systems, civil and structural works, electrical infrastructure, signalling, telecommunications and systems integration. The partners will also engage prospective customers to evaluate technical feasibility, commercial viability and implementation requirements.

For TuTr Hyperloop, an IIT Madras-incubated start-up, the partnership offers a route to explore the commercialisation of technologies developed in India. Its roadmap begins with linear induction motor-based systems, with plans to progress towards magnetic levitation and vacuum-based transportation applications.

“Translating such technological innovation into practical deployment requires robust engineering, scalable infrastructure and close collaboration across the ecosystem,” S V Desai, whole-time director and senior executive vice-president for infrastructure at L&T, said.

Desai said hyperloop technology had the potential to enable faster transit, improve logistics efficiency, reduce energy consumption and lower emissions. Turning those potential benefits into practical applications would require scalable infrastructure and coordinated engineering, he added.

writingonblog uncensored: India’s sovereign cloud push draws in Zoho unit a...

writingonblog uncensored: India’s sovereign cloud push draws in Zoho unit a...: CHENNAI: Tata Consultancy Services will deploy ManageEngine’s IT management software on its SovereignSecure Cloud, as India’s largest IT ser...

India’s sovereign cloud push draws in Zoho unit as TCS builds domestic platform

CHENNAI:
Tata Consultancy Services will deploy ManageEngine’s IT management software on its SovereignSecure Cloud, as India’s largest IT services group seeks to meet growing demand from governments and companies for infrastructure that keeps data within local jurisdiction.

ManageEngine, a division of Zoho Corporation, announced the partnership on Tuesday. Its enterprise tools will run inside TCS’s AI-enabled cloud, which the Mumbai-headquartered group markets as indigenous. The companies said the aim is to accelerate sovereign cloud adoption across government, public sector and private enterprise customers.

The tie-up reflects a broader shift in how Indian institutions buy cloud capacity. The companies said rapid cloud adoption and a growing digital economy are raising demand for resilient infrastructure that supports operational continuity as well as data residency. TCS will supply the sovereign cloud architecture, deployment frameworks and security expertise. ManageEngine will provide tools to manage IT infrastructure end to end, a release stated.

“Sovereign cloud technology will play an important role in India’s AI-led transformation,” said Satishchandra Doreswamy, TCS’s global head of SovereignSecure Cloud. He said the addition of ManageEngine would help public sector and enterprise customers run cloud and AI workloads “securely, reliably and at scale”.

writingonblog uncensored: Tamil Nadu cuts chip subsidies loose from Centre'...

writingonblog uncensored: Tamil Nadu cuts chip subsidies loose from Centre'...: C Shivakumar @ CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu has delinked its semiconductor incentives from central government approval, offering chipmakers a fixed s...

Tamil Nadu cuts chip subsidies loose from Centre's approval

C Shivakumar @ CHENNAI:
Tamil Nadu has delinked its semiconductor incentives from central government approval, offering chipmakers a fixed set of state subsidies they can negotiate against even if their projects are not selected under Union government's Rs 1,27,500 crore Semicon 2.0 programme under the Tamil Nadu Semiconductor Ecosystem Scheme.

The scheme notified on October 6 and launched on Thursday (October 15) by Chief Minister Joseph Vijay marks a shift from a policy framework where in state support was linked to Central assistance, according to the GO accessed by TNIE. This provides the state greater freedom tp attract semi-conductor investments by allowing state incentives or projects that haven't secured Centre's approval.

According to the GO accessed by TNIE, the scheme has dual tracks. The first one tops up central aid for projects Centre approves. The other one backs those that did not apply to Semicon 2.0 or were not picked. Investors must choose one track per project. Proposals must reach Guidance Tamil Nadu, the state’s investment promotion agency, by September 30 2027, according to official sources.

The order marks a break with the state’s 2024 semiconductor policy, which tied eligibility to central approval and capped the capital subsidy at 50 per cent of whatever Centre paid. That policy also predates Semicon 2.0 and does not cover equipment, materials, chemicals, gases or test facilities. The new state scheme covers manufacturing-related segments of the semiconductor value chain, including fabrication plants, semiconductor equipment and materials, and assembly, testing, marking and packaging (ATMP) and outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) facilities.

Fresh incentives for chip design, research and development, and talent development may be notified separately. These areas are critical to building a deeper semiconductor ecosystem in India, strengthening domestic capabilities and reducing reliance on overseas technology and expertise, sources said.

It is learnt that till the new notification, the Tamil Nadu Semiconductor and Advanced Electronics Policy 2024 and the Tamil Nadu Semiconductor Mission 2030 will continue to provide the existing framework for these activities.

This comes in the wake of Industries Minister S Keerthana announcing the scheme during the 2026-27 Budget demand debate on August 25, 2026. She had then said Tamil Nadu could not fully benefit from the Centre’s SEMICON 1.0, and that a special incentive package would be introduced.

The scheme also puts forth a condition that equipment, materials and test-facility projects should provide 60pc of high value jobs paying as high as Rs 25,000 a month to residents of Tamil Nadu.

Factfile:
1. Tamil Nadu has delinked its chip subsidies from Union government's approval offering fresh set of state subsidies to projects that did not get Centre's approval under Semicon 2.0.
2. The new state scheme covers manufacturing-related segments of the semiconductor value chain reducing dependence on foreign technology and expertise.
3. Separate incentives to be announced for chip design, research and development, and talent development.
4. Tamil Nadu’s electronics exports rose nearly eightfold, from $1.66 billion in Financial Year (FY) 2021 to $19.9 billion in FY2026.
5. The scheme also puts forth a condition that equipment, materials and test-facility projects should provide 60pc of high value jobs

writingonblog uncensored: ATC to handle fivefold passenger surge as India v...

writingonblog uncensored: ATC to handle fivefold passenger surge as India v...: CHENNAI: India’s air traffic controllers will have to handle a more than fivefold increase in passenger numbers by 2047 as Union Minister of...

ATC to handle fivefold passenger surge as India vows to grow to 1.3 billion air passengers by 2047

CHENNAI:
India’s air traffic controllers will have to handle a more than fivefold increase in passenger numbers by 2047 as Union Minister of Civil Aviation of India Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu on Tuesday said India aims to grow from 24 crore air passengers to 130 crore passengers in the next two decades (2047).

In a recorded message to controllers gathered in Chennai for International Day of Air Traffic Controllers, the minister said the Airport Authority of India has earmarked Rs 3,490 crore for modernizing air navigation infrastructure, including Rs 1,532 crore for automation of air traffic management systems.

Acknowledging the strain of long watches, night shifts and split-second decisionsby air traffic controllers, Naidu said technology could assist but “judgment, composure and responsibility will always be human." He also highlighted  some 840 additional controller posts have been created in recent years.

The minister said flexible use of airspace has saved an estimated Rs 895 crore and nearly 1.95 lakh tons of carbon dioxide since August 2020.

Speaking on the occasion, Nivedita Dubey, Member (Human Resources) of the Airports Authority of India, has vowed an overhaul of career progression, a voice in how heavily funded navigation technology is bought, and open access to senior management.

She said the organisation was aware of “massive stagnation” at certain levels of the air traffic management (ATM) cadre, a long-running grievance of controllers’ representatives. A multidisciplinary team of officers, including some from ATC, has been formed to draw up a road map, she said.

The team is also reviewing a McKinsey study from a few years ago, which proposed restructuring and led to new posts in ATC and communication, navigation and surveillance (CNS). Dubey said the AAI was considering a fresh study through the Quality Council of India.

Dubey said the AAI has signed memoranda of understanding with several Indian Institutes of Management and will soon begin nominating officers for specialist programmes.

K Murali, general manager for air traffic control in Chennai, described how air traffic controller as a profession transformed since the 1930s and 1940s, when Chennai controllers tracked aircraft on a small blackboard, noting position, destination, timing and altitude, and calculating by hand where two flights might meet. Today, he said, “almost everything is automated”. Software computes aircraft speeds, predicts where flight paths may cross and alerts controllers to potential conflicts.

He said the clearest operational test came when Pakistan closed its airspace to Indian flights during Operation Sindoor. Airlines submitted alternative routes, controllers said which were unavailable, and operators chose among the rest, Murali said. The choice carried a cost -- one detour might add an hour of fuel, another three. Controllers approved and facilitated the flight plans.  The overall air space that Indian Air Traffic Controllers handles is around 5 million Square Nautical Miles which is equivalent to thrice the Indian Land Mass.

TN Wetland Authority stops short of ban on construction in buffer zone

 Restrictions proposed to protect drainage channels that sustain Ramsar listed Wetland

C Shivakumar @ Chennai:
Tamil Nadu’s wetlands authority has proposed allowing construction within parts of the buffer zone around Chennai’s Pallikaranai marsh, subject to restrictions designed to protect the drainage channels that sustain the Ramsar-listed wetland, according to official sources.

Official sources told TNIE that the Tamil Nadu State Wetlands Authority in its status report, which has been submitted to Madras High Court, has stated that construction need not be prohibited across the entire zone of influence and can instead be regulated according to site-specific scientific and hydrological characteristics. The revised interim zone covers 128.19 hectares across 36 survey numbers identified as potentially affecting the marsh’s hydrology.

The proposal follows objections from real estate developers, including CREDAI Chennai, Olympia Tech Park and Navin Housing and Properties, against the earlier demarcation drawn up after the Madras High Court’s August 4 order. The authority has not disclosed the extent of the changes made to the original boundary.

It is learnt that the authority received 23 representations from landowners, developers and others seeking the exclusion of privately owned patta land, reconsideration of specific survey parcels, recognition of existing buildings and development permissions, and a clearer distinction between the wetland boundary, its zone of influence and developed private land.

Following a further court order on September 7, officials met on September 30 to reconsider the proposed boundary. They examined historical Google Earth imagery to assess changes in water spread, low-lying areas, drainage channels, open land and built-up areas. Individual parcels were reassessed for their hydrological connectivity, drainage pathways, nearby wetlands, existing infrastructure and land use.

Sources said the authority observed thast the exercise sought to address concerns over the inclusion of private and some government land while balancing conservation and development.

Pallikaranai village accounts for 23 of the 36 survey-number entries in the revised zone. The others are in Sholinganallur, Karapakkam, Injambakkam, Perumbakkam, Okkiyam Thoraipakkam and Perungudi. Two parcels in Perumbakkam fall in Chengalpattu district, with the remaining parcels in Chennai district.

The proposed safeguards would prohibit the blocking or diversion of established inlet and outlet channels, natural drains and other water pathways. Dumping solid waste and construction or demolition debris in drainage routes would be barred, as would discharging untreated sewage, effluent or wastewater into watercourses connected to the wetland. Permanent alterations to established hydrological connections and industries classified as Red Category for their high pollution potential would also be prohibited.

Any construction within the proposed zone would require a no-objection certificate from the district-level wetlands management committee.

The approach would make the preservation of water flows, rather than a blanket construction ban, the central regulatory test for the interim zone. The authority says the safeguards are intended to prevent development from disrupting water entering or leaving the marsh or damaging its ecological character.

The revised boundary remains provisional. The authority says the final zone of influence will be determined only after scientific and cadastral assessments and ground verification under the Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2017, and the associated guidelines.

The report is to be placed before the High Court in about a dozen connected petitions, official sources said.

writingonblog uncensored: Tamil Nadu seeks 70% GST share, special package f...

writingonblog uncensored: Tamil Nadu seeks 70% GST share, special package f...: CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Finance Minister Dr N Marie Wilson on Thursday called for a fundamental change in the sharing of GST revenue, arguing th...

Tamil Nadu seeks 70% GST share, special package for exporting states

CHENNAI:
Tamil Nadu Finance Minister Dr N Marie Wilson on Thursday called for a fundamental change in the sharing of GST revenue, arguing that states should retain 70% of the proceeds instead of the current 50:50 split with the Union government.

Making the demand at his first meeting of the GST Council in New Delhi, the minister said states bear more than 60 per cent of public expenditure therefore need a larger share of GST revenues.

Urging the Union Government to come up with special packages for exporting States like Tamil Nadu, he said these should be outside the devolution mechanism and outside GST revenue share, so that the States are motivated to invest further and better in physical and social infrastructure for building a competitive ecosystem.

Drawing attention to several representations received from various trade associations of the State during the pre-GST Council consultative meeting held on September 3, 2026, Wilson highlighted that the differential GST rates on staple foods like rice is anomalous and exemption should be given irrespective of the quantity.

The minister, who was nominated to the Council by Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay, also called for a reduction in the GST rate on job work from 18% to 5%, arguing that the lower rate would ease working-capital pressures on MSMEs and benefit a wide range of industries, from agarbatti manufacturers to automobile companies and exporters.

Dr Wilson also backed backed the proposed Rs 10,000 minimum tax threshold for issuing notices under Sections 73, 74 and 74A of the GST Acts, saying it would reduce compliance burdens on taxpayers facing action over relatively small amounts.

He backed the move to include input tax credit accumulated on capital goods in GST refunds for exporters. He also welcomed the plan to extend refunds under the inverted duty structure to input services, and a looser regime on blocked credits that narrows the list of exclusions. The inverted duty structure arises when inputs are taxed at a higher rate than the finished product. On the last two measures he warned that the revenue loss would fall on the states.

S Nagarajan, the state’s commissioner of commercial taxes, and other senior officials accompanied Dr Wilson.

writingonblog uncensored: Four family property deeds to go paperless

writingonblog uncensored: Four family property deeds to go paperless: CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu will make the registration of four types of family property deeds paperless from November 2, allowing documents to be cr...

Four family property deeds to go paperless

CHENNAI:
Tamil Nadu will make the registration of four types of family property deeds paperless from November 2, allowing documents to be created, submitted and processed online while requiring the parties to appear before the sub-registrar only for authentication, according to a government order issued by the Commercial Taxes and Registration Department on Wednesday.

The move covers settlement deeds, release deeds, partition deeds and revocation of settlement deeds relating to family arrangements, and is part of the Registration Department's continuing shift towards digital registration under Project STAR 3.0.

According to the GO, the digitally executed deeds and supporting documents will be submitted through the online registration facility and processed through an electronic workflow. After registration, the document will be digitally sent to the citizen's login and preserved in the STAR system.

However, the paperless system will not do away with the physical appearance of the parties. They will still have to appear before the concerned sub-registrar for identification, Aadhaar authentication and completion of the prescribed registration formalities, the GO said.

The move is aimed at reducing the repeated handling, movement and scanning of paper documents and the need to maintain physical records at different stages of the registration process. It is also expected to improve traceability and retrieval of registered documents.

The government order said the Registration Department had proposed the expansion of paperless registration as part of its wider technology-led reforms to make registration services simpler, more transparent and citizen-friendly.

The department began computerisation with the launch of the STAR platform in 2000 and introduced paperless registration for selected categories of documents in January this year.

The government had subsequently introduced the first phase of Anywhere Registration in August, covering first sale of plots by promoters and first sale of flats by builders along with consecutive deposit of title deeds.

The latest expansion follows an announcement made by the Commercial Taxes and Registration Minister in the Assembly on September 7 that the four categories of family-arrangement documents would be brought under paperless registration.

The GO said the November 2 rollout would be subject to software readiness, completion of necessary workflow modifications and training of departmental officials and stakeholders.

Chennai port turns to digital tracking to ease export container flows

CHENNAI:
Chennai Port Authority has launched a digital system 'Port Setu' to track export containers on the road between inland warehouses and the port gate. It is the first step toward making gate entry fully paperless.

Port Setu, uses automatic number plate recognition, optical character recognition and RFID readers, linked to the customs ICEGATE platform. It records the time each trailer takes to travel from a container freight station (CFS) to the port. It went live on September 17 and was formally launched on Thursday.

The system, developed by the Chennai chapter of the National Association of Container Freight Stations (NACFS), went live on September 17 and was formally launched on Wednesday. It forms the first phase of an Intelligent Vehicle Monitoring System (IVMS) being implemented under the central government's One Nation One Port Process (ONOP) initiative to standardise and digitise procedures across Indian ports.

For the freight stations, the main promise is more efficient use of trucks. Port Setu gives them real-time visibility of trailer arrivals at the port. The authority expects this to cut turnaround times and allow one extra round trip for every six made.

The next phase is expected to take the system closer to a paperless port gate. Under Phase 2 of the IVMS, the container terminals will digitise the verification of seal intactness. Chennai Port Authority envisages that this will eventually make gate-entry procedures completely digital and paperless, a release stated.

Sachin S Kurve, chairperson of Chennai Port Authority and KPL, said the system would provide greater visibility of container movements and help CFSs optimise trailer management within the port's jurisdiction.

writingonblog uncensored: Rangarajan urges GST Council to keep UPI payments ...

writingonblog uncensored: Rangarajan urges GST Council to keep UPI payments ...: CHENNAI: Former Reserve Bank of India governor C Rangarajan has urged the GST Council to keep UPI person-to-merchant transactions above ₹2,0...

Rangarajan urges GST Council to keep UPI payments tax-free

CHENNAI:
Former Reserve Bank of India governor C Rangarajan has urged the GST Council to keep UPI person-to-merchant transactions above ₹2,000 outside the GST net, arguing that India should first decide whether the digital payment system needs to carry a cost and whether now is the right time to impose it.

The 57th GST Council meeting is scheduled to be held in New Delhi on October 8.

Speaking at an event marking the launch of Cashless Nation: How UPI Changed Everything at IIT-Madras, authored by Dr Santanu Paul and B Sambamurthy, Rangarajan said there was a strong case for treating UPI as a public good, while cautioning that this did not necessarily mean it had to remain free forever.

“There is no general rule that no price should be charged on public goods. There are public goods on which prices are charged,” he said, citing museums and parks as examples.

The more immediate question, he said, was whether the time had come to impose a charge on UPI transactions.

“There is also the argument that 75% of transactions will not bear any charge. But that cuts both ways. If 75% of transactions will not carry a cost, why introduce the charge at all?” he said.

Rangarajan suggested that the cost of maintaining the payment infrastructure could instead be recovered at a later stage, perhaps over a five- or 10-year period.

“The question to ask today is whether today is the right time to do it,” he said.

He also pointed to a tax consequence of introducing a fee. Once a charge is levied for a payment service, it would constitute a taxable service and attract GST, requiring the government to determine the applicable rate.

“The moment you levy a charge, it automatically attracts GST, because it is a service provided, and GST will have to be paid,” Rangarajan said.

“My response is very clear. I would urge the GST Council, when it next meets, to come out clearly and say that GST should not be levied,” he said.

The authors of the book, meanwhile, highlighted the features that helped UPI become a mass-market payment system, particularly its interoperability and low cost.

The book's authors, Santanu Paul and B Sambamurthy, argued that UPI's success rested on four features: it is instant, easy to use, interoperable and free.

Paul said its architecture reflected what Nandan Nilekani, Infosys co-founder, calls the "four-party model". Any app on the sender's side can transact with any app on the receiver's side, and either party can draw on any bank account. Two fintech companies and two banks thus deliver the efficiency of a payment within a single bank.

Some of India's largest lenders resisted the design, Paul said, because it threatened a business in which payments had long been something customers paid for. "Some of the biggest banks in the country were trying to crush the four-party model," he said.

Sambamurthy said the regulator made a "conscious decision" to mandate interoperability because UPI is a public good. That contrasts with systems elsewhere, where users can transact only within one platform's network.

Zero fees also transformed merchant acceptance. Before UPI, taking electronic payments typically required a point-of-sale terminal costing about ₹10,000. A QR code now does the job at almost no upfront cost.

writingonblog uncensored: Rival states open Chennai offices to woo Tamil Nad...

writingonblog uncensored: Rival states open Chennai offices to woo Tamil Nad...: C Shivakumar @ CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu's status as one of India's favoured industrial destinations is being tested on its own ground. Ri...

Rival states open Chennai offices to woo Tamil Nadu's investors and its dealmakers

C Shivakumar @ CHENNAI:

Tamil Nadu's status as one of India's favoured industrial destinations is being tested on its own ground. Rival states are opening offices in Chennai to reach the companies that have long looked to the city when expanding.

The Andhra Pradesh Economic Development Board, an investment promotion agency, is contemplating to establish its presence here and Invest UP, Uttar Pradesh's investment promotion agency, has established a presence in the city. Haryana is also expected to follow, say sources.

The contest is also over people. Both agencies are drawing on investment-promotion professionals trained at Guidance Tamil Nadu, the state's investment promotion agency. The state Industries department has described poaching as a "serious concern". As it prepares a pay revision, staff have been asked to sign a bond promising not to join a competing state, according to people familiar with discussions held this week.

"There is huge demand for officials of Guidance because they are more skilled," a former Guidance official said.

The exposure is institutional as well as personal. Guidance was set up 34 years ago and was among the first state agencies to bring investment promotion in-house rather than lean on consultancies such as Boston Consulting Group, Ernst and Young and KPMG, a former Guidance official said. Officials from Kerala, Telangana and Karnataka have visited Chennai to study the model. Guidance has also spent years cultivating a network of target companies that newer agencies lack. Losing experienced staff could mean losing knowledge of investors, projects and negotiations, not just headcount.

A Industries department source told TNIE that there had been attempts to lure Guidance employees. He argued that states should compete on the strength of their propositions, not on each other's staff. "Our approach has never been to compete on incentives alone," he said, pointing to Tamil Nadu's industrial ecosystem, infrastructure, talent, speed of execution and policy continuity.

Andhra Pradesh plays down the rivalry. Openly we don't see it as a competition, an Andhra Pradesh industries official said, adding that it was not as bad as people over here think. The state's priority is anchor projects around which suppliers can cluster, and it will need closer links with Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai to build them.

Tamil Nadu has nonetheless lost ground to it. Under Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, Andhra Pradesh has pursued investors aggressively. Hwaseung Enterprises, the South Korean footwear maker, moved a planned Rs 1,720cn non-leather footwear plant to Kuppam in Andhra Pradesh after being offered more lucrative land-linked incentives last year. It had earlier signed a memorandum of understanding with Tamil Nadu. Andhra Pradesh also beat Tamil Nadu to a proposed flight-testing and integration complex for the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft, India's fifth-generation stealth fighter programme, and tried unsuccessfully to court a $4 billion HD Hyundai shipbuilding project, coming up in Thoothukudi.

Uttar Pradesh is taking a more direct approach. Its Chennai office, has been operating for about a month under a general manager, according to an Invest UP official. Offices are also being set up in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Delhi and Mumbai. The aim is to meet investors "on the ground" rather than wait for them to come to Lucknow. Chennai's concentration of automotive, electronics and engineering companies makes it an obvious target. The state is also weighing country-specific enclaves for Taiwanese, South Korean and Japanese companies. Invest UP official has privately called the contest among states a "blood sport".

Tamil Nadu insists the new arrivals do not change its approach. The Industries department official said it remains in regular contact with companies in India and abroad, digitally and in person. "If India has to grow, every state has to grow," the department official said, arguing that states should aim to enlarge the overall pool of investment rather than redistribute it.

writingonblog uncensored: TN registers one lakh property documents online

writingonblog uncensored: TN registers one lakh property documents online: Tamil Nadu has registered more than 100,000 property documents in the 44 days from August 17 to September 30, under the state’s “Presenceles...

writingonblog uncensored: Qatar interest fuels Kothari Industrial’s Tamil Na...

writingonblog uncensored: Qatar interest fuels Kothari Industrial’s Tamil Na...: CHENNAI: Kothari Industrial Corporation is seeking to accelerate its expansion in Tamil Nadu with interest from Qatar’s Al Thani family, as ...

Qatar interest fuels Kothari Industrial’s Tamil Nadu expansion

CHENNAI:
Kothari Industrial Corporation is seeking to accelerate its expansion in Tamil Nadu with interest from Qatar’s Al Thani family, as the group diversifies beyond footwear into design education, fertilisers, drones, food and consumer goods.

At its 56th annual general meeting in Chennai on Wednesday, executive chairman Jinnah Rafiq Ahmed said Sheikh Jassamal Al Thani had expressed interest in supporting KICL’s next phase of growth. The company did not disclose the size or structure of any proposed investment.

Tamil Nadu is at the centre of its expansion. KICL is developing a 225-acre project in Madurai and evaluating opportunities in Ramanathapuram. Its footwear operations include Phoenix Kothari Park at Padalur and an Adidas facility in Karur. The company is also partnering with Italy’s IUAD to establish a design school in Hosur, with short-term programmes expected from November and degree courses from April 2027.

KICL is reviving its fertiliser business, expanding drones into manufacturing and entering FMCG, a release stated.

TN registers one lakh property documents online

Tamil Nadu has registered more than 100,000 property documents in the 44 days from August 17 to September 30, under the state’s “Presenceless Registration” system, which allows documents to be submitted online around the clock without a physical visit to a registration office.

The system was made mandatory on August 17 for the first sale of plots and flats in apartment projects. From September 15, it was extended to title-deed deposits and receipt deeds involving banks and financial institutions.

The registration department in a release stated it would gradually extend presenceless registration to other categories of documents, with changes to the software being made on the basis of feedback from citizens, developers, banks and other users

writingonblog uncensored: Uttar Pradesh vows to chase southern states indust...

writingonblog uncensored: Uttar Pradesh vows to chase southern states indust...: C Shivakumar @ Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh, long associated with agrarian economy and jobless growth, is seeking to rewrite its economic narrativ...

Uttar Pradesh vows to chase southern states industrial lead

C Shivakumar @ Lucknow:
Uttar Pradesh, long associated with agrarian economy and jobless growth, is seeking to rewrite its economic narrative. Its Industries Secretary Vijay Kiran Anand has a blunt pitch for investors weighing opportunities in  southern states -- look north, where a vast domestic market and falling freight costs are making the state increasingly competitive.

Briefing a delegation of journalists from Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, Kiran said that India's most populous state — long an underperformer in manufacturing investment relative to its economic weight — is closing the gap with the south not through incentives alone, but through hard infrastructure. Nearly half of India's Dedicated Freight Corridor, 47 of its 115 stations, now runs through Uttar Pradesh, cutting the time for goods to reach ports to two days and radically lowering transport costs that have long favoured coastal manufacturing hubs.

"Industries like auto and electronics want to be near ports because of transportation costs," Kiran said. "Now, because of the freight corridor and the expressway network, dry ports have come up — nine of them, four run by the state-owned Concor and five by private operators," he says.

Investment has skewed south for decades, drawn by port access and a services boom that states such as Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra built on earlier social-sector spending. Uttar Pradesh, by contrast, still derives its growth largely from manufacturing and a still-agrarian base — 75-90% of its land is irrigated, and three-quarters of the population depends on agriculture.

"Tamil Nadu is a port state, which is why it has auto clusters for export and electronics manufacturing. UP has a huge domestic market, which is why cement, steel, and similar companies are setting up here. UP also has a large talent pool — 56% of the workforce is around 25 years old, a very young workforce," says Kiran.

While Tamil Nadu, the most urbanised state is facing shortage of usable industrial land, Uttar Pradesh claims it has 75,000-acre land bank. "Farmers are reluctant to give up land. But going by our experience with large airports and expressways, land acquisition here hasn't become controversial — there's now a set process, and we're able to do it even for industrial clusters," he says.

That land is now anchoring the state's defence manufacturing ambitions. Pressed on why the Uttar Pradesh Defence Industrial Corridor — now eight years old — has attracted only around Rs 4,000 crore, Kiran noted the programme effectively began in 2021, not at its 2018 launch, and that 60-70 companies have since committed across its six nodes. The Kanpur node already hosts India's largest defence-manufacturing facility, while Lucknow is producing BrahMos missile systems. In Aligarh, all but 350 hectares of a 5,500-hectare site have been allotted.

Where the state concedes ground most readily is services. Uttar Pradesh has yet to build the Global Capability Centre and IT ecosystems that have made Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad magnets for high-paying jobs — a gap the secretary attributed to the south's earlier investment in social infrastructure. With 56% of its workforce under 25, some 8,000 educational institutions and roughly 200,000 STEM graduates a year, the state produces more labour than it can currently employ at the top end, feeding migration south which Kiran says that the state now want to reverse through a dedicated GCC policy.

The state's MSME base — 9.6 million enterprises, of which 7 million are registered on the government's Udyam portal — is being organised around a "One District, One Product" model that originated in Uttar Pradesh before being adopted nationally, pairing roughly 75 districts with signature local products, from Lucknow's chikankari embroidery to regional food-processing clusters.

Urbanisation remains the starkest gap with the south: at roughly 30%, against Tamil Nadu's 50-60%. However,UP's urban population alone, at 7 crore, exceeds Tamil Nadu's entire population, the secretary said.

writingonblog uncensored: Tata Trusts moves to unlock Rs 25,000cr exit route...

writingonblog uncensored: Tata Trusts moves to unlock Rs 25,000cr exit route...: Chennai: Tata Trusts has put forward a proposal to help the Shapoorji Pallonji (SP) Group cash out part of its long-held stake in Tata Sons,...

Tata Trusts moves to unlock Rs 25,000cr exit route for Shapoorji Pallonji Group

Chennai:
Tata Trusts has put forward a proposal to help the Shapoorji Pallonji (SP) Group cash out part of its long-held stake in Tata Sons, in a move that could finally resolve one of Indian corporate history's most protracted shareholder standoffs.

The plan, tabled by Noel Tata, chairman of Tata Trusts, at a Tata Sons board meeting, would see the group's holding company buy back shares from two SP Group entities — Sterling Investments Corporation and Cyrus Investments — in a deal expected to fetch at least Rs 25,000 crore.

The proposal follows a series of discussions between Tata, Tata Sons chairman N. Chandrasekaran, and Shapoor Mistry, who heads the SP Group.

Under the structure understood to be acceptable to the SP Group, the share sale would be executed in two tranches over 18 months, with Tata Sons pursuing a selective capital reduction through the National Company Law Tribunal. Shares would be valued using the income-tax fair value method under Rule 11UA of the Income Tax Rules, 1962 — setting a floor, rather than a ceiling, on the eventual payout.

Tata told the board that funding could be drawn from a mix of sources: internal cash flows, sales of listed shares, bringing outside investors into newer Tata businesses, and potential listings via offer-for-sale of some group companies. He asked the board to authorise the NCLT process and instructed the Tata Sons and Tata Trusts management teams to continue talks with the SP Group and its bankers, reporting back periodically.

The move marks the latest chapter in a dispute that has simmered since Cyrus Mistry's ouster as Tata Sons chairman in 2016. The SP Group, which holds an 18.4 per cent stake in Tata Sons, has for years sought liquidity from the unlisted holding company — a request complicated by Tata Sons' private status and the absence of a ready market for its shares.

India's Reactor Ambitions Race Ahead of Safety Codes, says ASME India

 

Chennai:
India's rapid nuclear and hydrogen expansion is creating a growing need for new and updated technical standards, according to Madhukar Sharma, President of ASME India Private Limited, the US body whose codes underpin safety regulation for pressure vessels, piping and boilers worldwide.

India's atomic energy regulator relies on ASME Section III as the baseline code for Class 1 reactor components — the safety-critical parts of the country's pressurised heavy water reactors, a design lineage traced to CANDU (Canadian Deuterium Uranium) technology but substantially indigenised since, Sharma said on Friday on the sidelines of the second day of the International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition India, held in Chennai.

He said India’s indigenously designed Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor used the French RCC-MR code. The code is used for the design and construction of mechanical components in nuclear power plants for relevant high-temperature mechanical components.

India has no Small modular reactor (SMR) specific code, and companies are operating on proprietary in-house standards while global codes — a joint effort between ASME and the Japanese Society of Mechanical Engineers covering both fission and fusion — remain in draft, expected within a couple of years, Sharma added.

He said that India has published draft rules this week opening the nuclear sector to greater private participation, which ASME expects could accelerate the standards pipeline within six to twelve months. The absence of settled codes is compounding a separate supply-side constraint: India has just four or five qualified suppliers of nuclear-grade materials, against an estimated need for 50 to meet the country's target of 100 gigawatts of nuclear capacity by 2047, ASME said.

Sharma said that Light water reactors (LWR) are now gaining ground, and that's arguably where India should be investing next, much as it once invested in Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor technology — a choice partly shaped by India being excluded from LWR technology transfer in earlier decades. That constraint has eased considerably, and LWRs offer scalability into SMRs and even smaller, mobile reactor formats.

India has begun expanding nuclear engineering education at institutions including IIT Bombay and IIT Madras, while ASME is working with faculty at institutions such as the Indian Institutes of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science on curricula, he said.

Eom

writingonblog uncensored: Chennai FTWZs can ease customs, working capital pr...

writingonblog uncensored: Chennai FTWZs can ease customs, working capital pr...: CHENNAI: Free trade warehousing zones (FTWZs) in Chennai can help exporters reduce customs delays and ease pressure on working capital, acco...

Chennai FTWZs can ease customs, working capital pressures for exporters

CHENNAI:
Free trade warehousing zones (FTWZs) in Chennai can help exporters reduce customs delays and ease pressure on working capital, according to DP World’s 2026 India Country Report.

The report, which was released on Monday, cites Chennai’s FTWZ, along with those at Nhava Sheva and Cochin, as examples of how businesses can manage rising trade volumes amid growing uncertainty.

The report states that Indian businesses are placing greater emphasis on resilience than their global counterparts. Supplier diversification is the leading priority, followed by increasing inventory and friend-shoring.

Technology adoption and entry into new markets are also key drivers, with more than half of Indian businesses having fully digitalised customer-facing services, compared with fewer than four in ten globally. AI is already improving route optimisation, documentation and customs efficiency, strengthening supply-chain resilience, ther report stated.

New free-trade agreements with the UK and the EU are expected to support trade, while tariff changes and geopolitical tensions continue to create uncertainty. The uncertainty is prompting companies to strengthen their supply chains. About 70% of Indian executives are diversifying suppliers, compared with 51% globally, while 59% are increasing inventories to guard against disruptions, the report added.

writingonblog uncensored: Tamil Nadu budget promise falls short on rural hou...

writingonblog uncensored: Tamil Nadu budget promise falls short on rural hou...: CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu allocated just Rs 1,700 crore, or 48.6 per cent, of the Rs 3,500 crore promised for the Kalaignarin Kanavu Illam scheme ...

Tamil Nadu budget promise falls short on rural housing

CHENNAI:
Tamil Nadu allocated just Rs 1,700 crore, or 48.6 per cent, of the Rs 3,500 crore promised for the Kalaignarin Kanavu Illam scheme in 2024-25 to build 100,000 rural houses, according to Comptroller and auditor General report tabled in the state assembly on Tuesday.

The scheme was announced at Rs 3.5 lakh per house. Against the stipulated Rs 1,400 crore for SC/ST beneficiaries, the government provided Rs 680 crore, while the general category received Rs 1,020 crore against Rs 2,100 crore.

The audit said the shortfall showed that budget announcements were not fully translated into actual allocations.

A wider implementation gap was flagged in the Chief Minister Thayumanavar Scheme, announced with a Rs 27,922 crore outlay for vulnerable groups including destitute people, elderly persons living alone, single-parent families and orphaned children. No funds were provided in 2024-25, with the scheme sanctioned and launched only in August of the following year.

TN pension shortfall understates revenue expenditure by Rs 101 crore

CHENNAI:
Tamil Nadu understated its revenue expenditure by Rs 100.71 crore in 2024-25 by failing to make its full contribution to the pension scheme for government employees, according to a Comptroller and Auditor General report tabled in the state assembly. This raised questions over the management of a pension corpus of nearly Rs 89,085 crore.

The shortfall arose under the Defined Contributory Pension Scheme (DCPS), which covers employees recruited from April 1 2003. Under the scheme, employees contribute 10 per cent of their basic pay and dearness allowance, with a matching contribution from the state government.

During 2024-25, employees contributed Rs 4,238.75 crore to the DCPS, while the state contributed Rs 4,139.91 crore — a shortfall of Rs 98.84 crore. For All India Service officers, the government contributed Rs 5.83 crore against the required Rs 7.70 crore, resulting in a further Rs 1.87 crore gap.

The total shortfall of Rs 100.71 crore resulted in an equivalent understatement of revenue expenditure, the audit said.

Despite requests from the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) in 2008 and 2009 to join the National Pension System (NPS), the state declined in 2010 and has continued to operate its DCPS outside the NPS architecture for more than two decades.

The state has also not appointed a dedicated fund manager for the scheme. Instead, it has invested the pension corpus under the Life Insurance Corporation of India’s New Group Superannuation Scheme with Cash Accumulation Plan.

The investment stood at Rs 89,084.64 crore as of March 31 2025. Interest of Rs 6,198.69 crore earned from LIC during 2024-25 was reinvested in the same fund, the report stated.

Individual DCPS accounts are maintained by the Government Data Centre, which calculates and credits interest annually at notified rates. The state paid Rs 5,642.51 crore in interest on DCPS balances during 2024-25, the report stated.

Zanskar's first daughter in uniform; 342 officers commissioned as officers in Armed forces

C Shivakumar @ CHENNAI: 
Twenty-four-year-old Stanzin Tsangyang travelled from the remote mountains of Zanskar to Chennai to begin a journey that few in her home district had taken before. On Saturday, she became the first officer from Zanskar district in Ladakh to be commissioned into the Indian Army.

Her parents, Tundup Tsering, a teacher, and Rigzin Ladol, travelled from Ladakh to witness the passing-out parade at the Officers Training Academy. Dressed in traditional attire, they stood proudly alongside their daughter and relatives after the ceremony.

“There was no one to guide us to join the Army in our district,” Stanzin rued, pointing to the lack of an established pathway for young people in the region aspiring to become officers.

“This is our first time in Chennai and it is all because of our daughter. I am proud she is contributing to the nation,” her father said. Stanzin left home at a young age to study at Lamdon Model School in Leh, spending nearly 14 years in a hostel away from her family. Her academic performance lead her to Tezpur University in Assam, where she studied mechanical engineering.

It was at university that she joined the National Cadet Corps. “I came to know through the NCC that I could join the Army as an officer,” she said.

The transition from a remote Himalayan district to military training in Chennai was demanding. “The road was filled with challenges, sacrifices and moments of doubt, and the resilience instilled by the mountains kept me moving forward,” she said.

For Lieutenant Shivam Ahlawat, Saturday’s commissioning represented something different: the continuation of a military legacy spanning five generations and more than 140 years. Joining Skinner’s Horse, he follows relatives who served in conflicts ranging from the battlefields of France and Flanders to China, Italy, Goa, Kargil and counter-insurgency operations in northeast India. The family hopes its extraordinary record, spanning two World Wars, Independence and several major military operations, will eventually be recognised by the Guinness World Records.

For Ritika Dubey of Gorakhpur, meanwhile, the significance was personal in another way. She is the first member of her family to pursue a career in the armed forces. Among the locals, it was 22-year-old MR Ruswanth from Theni district who donned his olive green as 25 members of his family visited OTA parade ground.

The latest batch at the Officers Training Academy included 313 men and 29 women commissioned into various arms and services. Seventeen cadets from friendly foreign countries — seven men and 10 women from Seychelles, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Eswatini, Bhutan and Lesotho — also completed their training. The parade was reviewed by Chief of Naval staff Admiral Krishna Swaminathan.

Addressing the cadets, Swaminathan said technology can give you information, speed and precision, but it certainly cannot replace wisdom. "Do not outsource your thinking to an algorithm. Because, ultimately, the decisive advantage will belong to the one that
out-thinks the adversary," he said.

The admiral said that tomorrow’s wars will demand the combined strength of all Services and all domains. "Irrespective of the colour of our uniforms, we must train together, operate together, and when called upon to do so, prevail together," he said.

Tamil Nadu gives investment commission powers to fast-track big projects

Approvals governed by 22 state laws will be brought under a strengthened investment facilitation framework overseen by Chief Secretary

CHENNAI:
In a bid to promote Ease of Doing Business (EoDB) by positioning the State as a preferred investment destination by providing streamlined, transparent and time-bound regulatory approval mechanisms, Tamil Nadu's Industries Minister S Keerthana on Wednesday tabled a bill on the state assembly to create Tamil Nadu Investment Promotion Commission.

The commission will be chaired by the state's chief secretary which will put 22 state laws under new investment facilitation framework. These include range of laws from forest and land legislation to town planning, fire safety, public health and urban local-body acts.

The bill, which will amend The Tamil Nadu Business Facilitation (Amendment) Act, 2026, will provide commission to mandate "large, strategic and high-impact" investments. This includes projects worth Rs 200 crore or more, those expected to create at least 5,000 jobs, ventures tied to free-trade agreements, and investments by the Tamil diaspora.

Apart from the Chief secretary, the commission will have industries secretary serving as member-convener and up to 20 other appointed members. of these, five investment or industry experts can be invited to meetings as special invitees.

The move marks a shift from the advisory single-window bodies that have handled investor approvals in Tamil Nadu since 2018. According to the bill, the commission's directions to the state's various nodal agencies, single-window committees and departments "shall be binding."

The commission will also be tasked with reviewing land alloted for Industrial use that remains undeveloped.  It will also examine the use of industrial land allotted by tate Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu (SIPCOT), the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO), the Tamil Nadu Small Industries Development Corporation (SIDCO), the Tamil Nadu Adi Dravidar Housing and Development Corporation (TAHDCO), and the Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT), among other state agencies.

The legislation also seeks to put a tighter clock on regulatory approvals. Where state laws or subordinate legislation provide more than 21 days — or no deadline at all — for a clearance, the approval period will generally be deemed to be reduced to 21 days. The provision will not override a longer deadline prescribed under a Central law.

writingonblog uncensored: SDAT terminates Rs 205.89 crore contract of Global...

writingonblog uncensored: SDAT terminates Rs 205.89 crore contract of Global...: CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu's flagship Global Sports City project at Semmencheri, along Chennai’s Old Mahabalipuram Road (OMR) corridor  has b...

SDAT terminates Rs 205.89 crore contract of Global Sports City

CHENNAI:
Tamil Nadu's flagship Global Sports City project at Semmencheri, along Chennai’s Old Mahabalipuram Road (OMR) corridor  has been hit, with the state's Sports Development Authority (SDAT) terminating the Rs 205.89 crore work order awarded for its construction. The foundation stone was laid by then Chief Minister M K Stalin on February 18.

This was disclosed by RPP Infra Projects Limited, which bagged the contract on February 20, 2026, to the National Stock Exchange in its filing on Thursday.

It is learnt that SDAT said the project would be redesigned on a larger footprint, citing the need to make full use of available land to build a "bigger, comprehensive and all-encompassing" sports city capable of hosting major national and international events, including competitions on the scale of the Asian Games.

The company said it received formal communication from SDAT on August 12, 2026 confirming the work order had been cancelled.
The original contract was disclosed to exchanges on February 20, 2026. The company said it had already begun work under the order and incurred significant costs before the cancellation.

According to the filing, the decision followed a broader review of ongoing state projects and work orders undertaken by the new administration. The company said it had engaged with SDAT in an effort to keep the original project alive, but the termination went ahead regardless.

The filing gave no indication of a revised timeline or budget for the redesigned Global Sports City, nor whether the company would seek compensation for expenditure already incurred.

The company said it is now evaluating the financial and other implications of the termination, along with its rights and remedies under the terms of the work order. It cited these circumstances — including its efforts to continue the project and the expenditure already incurred — in explaining what it called an inadvertent delay in disclosing the termination to the exchanges, for which it expressed regret.

The Global Sports City is planned over more than 80 acres in the first phase. The project was to include an international-standard football stadium, shooting ranges (10m, 25m and 50m), archery facilities, rowing and kayaking infrastructure, BMX cycling and skating arenas, multi-discipline indoor stadiums and residential hostels for athletes.

Semmmancheri was among the three sites finalised for setting up the Global Sports City. The other two considered were Kuthambakkam and Vandalur.  The site was prone to flooding and then Chief secretary Shiv Das Meena  has asked Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority to prepare a stormwater drainage plan to avoid flooding.

writingonblog uncensored: TN Industrial Policy targets to move state's manuf...

writingonblog uncensored: TN Industrial Policy targets to move state's manuf...: C Shivakumar @ CHENNAI:   The state is targeting a $1.5 trillion economy by 2036, built around one, three, five and ten-year milestones ra...

TN Industrial Policy targets to move state's manufacturing base up the value chain

C Shivakumar @ CHENNAI:

 
The state is targeting a $1.5 trillion economy by 2036, built around one, three, five and ten-year milestones rather than a straight-line growth projection, according to Industries, Investment Promotion & Commerce Department officials familiar with the drafting process. Growth rates are expected to vary across the phases before converging on that goal. Officials added that the document is getting shaped less by fixed targets than by a "direction of travel," with stakeholder consultations across industry still under way.

 

Asked how the approach differs from the previous government's 2021 industrial policy, officials declined to draw a direct comparison, saying only that the new policy is designed to be "built with people at its centre," with a goal of a sustainable increase in the state's per capita income. Industries Minister S Keerthana said, "Every policy we make is ultimately about improving the lives of the people of Tamil Nadu. Economic growth is a means to that end — creating better jobs, higher incomes, and greater opportunities and prosperity for every family,” the minister told TNIE.

 

Officials point to policy stability regardless of which party holds power, established infrastructure, a skilled workforce, immediate land availability and incentives. The new policy is designed to match or exceed states such as Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana and Uttar Pradesh, all of which are competing for the same large manufacturing investments.

 

The secondary sector contributed 33.8 per cent of Tamil Nadu's gross state value added, of which manufacturing with 18.62% already accounts for a significant share of the state's output — figures officials cite as evidence the state ranks first or second nationally across most manufacturing sectors. Specific targets for manufacturing's share of GSDP and exports remain under deliberation, though officials say the direction is toward growing both manufacturing-led exports and the services sector in parallel.

 

Sustainability and circular-economy practices will be "core" to the policy, officials said, though they did not specify carbon-reduction targets or timelines. Tamil Nadu's pitch rests on continuity and readiness. On process, the government has committed to a 21-day deadline for single-window clearances and is developing an investor grievance portal to give companies a formal channel to raise concerns — part of a broader push, officials say, to address complaints raised in consultations over land availability, logistics, power reliability and regulatory approvals.

 

Officials also flagged plans for "model" industrial parks with plug-and-play capability, to be piloted in select locations, alongside industrial townships intended to offer the fuller range of facilities foreign investors expect. The policy will also lean toward decentralised, district-level industrial hubs built around regional strengths, in an explicit effort to bring jobs closer to people rather than driving migration toward Chennai.

 

Tamil Nadu has the highest number of registered small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) of any Indian state. Officials said the policy would support their integration into global value chains, without detailing specific mechanisms. On the balance between domestic and foreign capital, officials framed the test as employment and benefit to the state's residents rather than the origin of investment.

 

P Ravichandran, Chairman, CII Southern Region and President of Danfoss India said the state’s GSDP will need to expand by 3.5 to 3.8 times from current levels to achieve the $1.5 trillion economy target, implying a sustained compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12-13 per cent over the next decade.

Factfile
1. Tamil Nadu's outgoing Industrial Policy 2021 was built around five-year investment and jobs targets. The draft policy now taking shape is being framed for five  years but it will be made keeping in mind the long term (10 years)horizon.

2. The 2021 policy targeted ₹10 lakh crore ($135bn) in investment between 2021 and 2025 and 20 lakh jobs by the same deadline. The new draft policy is being anchored to a $1.5tn state economy within ten years — implying a 12-13 per cent compound annual growth rate, well above the 10-11 per cent Tamil Nadu has sustained over the past eight years.

3. The 2021 policy leaned on automobiles, electronics, renewables and — added later — semiconductors as sunrise sectors. Consultations for the new policy have foregrounded life sciences, rare earths, defence, semiconductors and chemicals.

4. The 2021 policy followed the standard pattern of government drafting with industry input. The new draft policy has been shaped through structured stakeholder surveys with sector associations.

5. The 2021 centred on fiscal incentives — stamp duty concessions, electricity tax breaks, SGST refunds — early signals suggest the new draft policy will fill focus on the digital single-window portal and cutting clearances timelines along with incentives.

6. The new draft policy is also expected to push for more balanced growth across the state, rather than concentration in established industrial belts. This points to a regional blueprint identifying each area's comparative strengths and outlining how they can be built up to compete globally.

7. Research and development is set to receive greater emphasis, with plans to replicate the IIT Madras Research Park model in other parts of the state under the new draft policy. The 2021 policy referenced the IIT-M Research Park as a flagship innovation hub largely concentrated around Chennai; the new draft policy signals an intent to decentralise that model, building similar R&D and innovation clusters closer to emerging industrial regions.

8. The 2021 policy's township provisions were framed largely around industrial infrastructure. The new draft policy is expected to extend that focus towards quality of life, with plans for two to three model industrial townships designed around improved living standards for the workforce, rather than industrial facilities alone.

writingonblog uncensored: T oy Manufacturer Veva Toys to Create 5,000 Jobs i...

writingonblog uncensored: T oy Manufacturer Veva Toys to Create 5,000 Jobs i...: Chennai:  Veva Toys Global will invest ₹1,000 crore to set up an electronics toy manufacturing facility in Tiruvallur, creating 5,000 jobs, ...

T oy Manufacturer Veva Toys to Create 5,000 Jobs in Tiruvallur with 90% Women Workforce

Chennai:

 Veva Toys Global will invest ₹1,000 crore to set up an electronics toy manufacturing facility in Tiruvallur, creating 5,000 jobs, with the company's workforce expected to be 90 per cent women.

The investment reflects the government's stated focus on inclusive industrial growth, with women-led shop floors increasingly forming part of Tamil Nadu's manufacturing expansion story.

writingonblog uncensored: Tamil Nadu strengthens semiconductor ecosystem wit...

writingonblog uncensored: Tamil Nadu strengthens semiconductor ecosystem wit...: Chennai: Tamil Nadu is deepening its semiconductor and advanced electronics ecosystem with a new pipeline of investments spanning semiconduc...

Tamil Nadu strengthens semiconductor ecosystem with fresh investment pipeline

Chennai:

Tamil Nadu is deepening its semiconductor and advanced electronics ecosystem with a new pipeline of investments spanning semiconductor equipment, bonding materials, reliability testing, chip design and manufacturing support.

Among the key projects, Kinesis Semiconductor Wire Solutions plans to invest ₹193 crore in Chennai to establish what the project note describes as India’s first localised semiconductor bonding-wire manufacturing facility. The project is aimed at strengthening domestic supply chains for a critical material used in semiconductor packaging.

Bigpro Solutions is investing ₹443 crore in Krishnagiri to establish an independent reliability and failure-testing laboratory compliant with MIL-STD-883, the US military standard for microelectronic testing. The facility is expected to support reliability assessment of semiconductor and electronic components.

Richport Technology, meanwhile, is investing ₹130 crore in precision cleaning and surface-treatment capabilities for semiconductor equipment manufacturers, adding another link to the emerging local supply chain.

The pipeline also includes Avalon Technologies’ ₹1,000-crore project for semiconductor equipment and advanced electronics manufacturing, along with PTW Semiconductor’s ₹250-crore investment in semiconductor equipment build, assembly and new product development.

Taken together, the projects indicate a widening of Tamil Nadu’s semiconductor ambitions beyond chip fabrication into packaging materials, equipment, testing, precision engineering and other parts of the supply chain.

The investments come as the state seeks to build an integrated semiconductor and electronics manufacturing ecosystem, positioning Tamil Nadu to capture a larger share of the global supply chain for high-value electronic components and manufacturing services.

writingonblog uncensored: Tamil Nadu fuel retailers threaten to halt digital...

writingonblog uncensored: Tamil Nadu fuel retailers threaten to halt digital...: CHENNAI: Petrol pump operators in Tamil Nadu are threatening to stop accepting UPI and other digital wallet payments across the state, cit...

Tamil Nadu fuel retailers threaten to halt digital payments over account freezes

CHENNAI:

Petrol pump operators in Tamil Nadu are threatening to stop accepting UPI and other digital wallet payments across the state, citing a growing risk of arbitrary bank account freezes and police action arising from disputed transactions linked to cybercrime investigations.

TNPDA president KP Murali, who wrote a letter to Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay, said dealers were being treated as suspects in cybercrime cases despite having no means of verifying the identity or source of funds of customers who pay digitally. The association's roughly 5,000-odd outlets across Tamil Nadu process between 200 and 500 digital transactions a day on average, with digital payments now accounting for more than half of revenue at some stations, according to the letter.

Murali said banks were placing liens on dealers' accounts, and in some cases freezing entire operating accounts, on instructions from cyber-crime authorities investigating disputed transactions — actions he called disproportionate to the underlying disputes. He also cited cases of dealers being picked up during early morning hours and held for questioning without being told the specifics of the transaction under investigation.

The dealers took up digital payments at the urging of public-sector oil marketing companies (OMCs) after demonetisation, in line with the central government's push toward a cashless economy, he said. Platforms cited include Google Pay, PhonePe and Paytm.

TNPDA is not opposing cybercrime investigations, Murali said, but is asking the state government to require police and cyber-crime units to give dealers written details of disputed transactions and communicate formally before taking coercive action; to confine any lien or account freeze to the disputed amount rather than the full operating account; and to issue directives against detaining dealers absent evidence of direct wrongdoing. The association has also asked for a standard operating procedure for handling disputed digital transactions at fuel retail outlets, and has requested a meeting with the Chief Minister's office.

writingonblog uncensored: Tamil Nadu's new government opens the books — and ...

writingonblog uncensored: Tamil Nadu's new government opens the books — and ...:   CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu's finance minister N. Marie Wilson presented the state's Revised Budget Estimates for 2026-27 to the legis...

writingonblog uncensored: Tamil Nadu seeks to turn SIPCOT land banks into fu...

writingonblog uncensored: Tamil Nadu seeks to turn SIPCOT land banks into fu...: CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu is seeking to turn its industrial parks from land banks into operating manufacturing hubs, beginning with Manapparai w...

Tamil Nadu seeks to turn SIPCOT land banks into functioning factories

CHENNAI:

Tamil Nadu is seeking to turn its industrial parks from land banks into operating manufacturing hubs, beginning with Manapparai where only four of 32 allotted industrial plots have so far become operational.

Industries and Investment Promotion Minister S Keerthana taking part in a discussion initiated by DMK MLA K N Nehru on Monday said that the 1,097.86-acre Manapparai SIPCOT park had struggled to attract production because of gaps in basic infrastructure, including water, roads, power, public transport and security.

The government has moved to close those gaps after an inspection in May under its SIPCOT Revival Mission, which involved discussions with investors on the obstacles delaying their projects.

Water supply from the Cauvery Water Scheme was extended to all allotted plots from July 7, while a second supply arrangement through Tamil Nadu Newsprint and Papers Ltd has also been put in place. Road and streetlight works are moving ahead, while land has been secured for a proposed 110 kV substation to provide dedicated power capacity.

Bus services to the industrial park have also begun and CCTV infrastructure is being established. The government has separately intervened in company-specific regulatory delays, including expediting a long-pending approval for a PepsiCo unit.

SIPCOT has earmarked Rs 43.6 crore for infrastructure in the new phase, including roads, stormwater drains, culverts and streetlights.

“An industrial park cannot be considered successful merely because land has been acquired and plots have been allotted,” Keerthana said, adding that the real test was whether factories were being established, jobs created and economic activity generated.

writingonblog uncensored: Tamil Nadu shrugs off Andhra Pradesh's investor pi...

writingonblog uncensored: Tamil Nadu shrugs off Andhra Pradesh's investor pi...: CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu shrugged off Andhra Pradesh's upcoming investment outreach event in Coimbatore on August 12, with senior government ...

Tamil Nadu shrugs off Andhra Pradesh's investor pitch in Coimbatore

CHENNAI:

Tamil Nadu shrugged off Andhra Pradesh's upcoming investment outreach event in Coimbatore on August 12, with senior government sources casting the roadshow as routine inter-state competition rather than a threat. The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) is hosting an Andhra Pradesh Partnership Summit Roadshow, aimed at drawing regional industrial investment to the neighbouring state.

Officials also denied any directive discouraging companies from attending the Andhra event, and accused the opposition and media reports of turning every issue into a negative story about Tamil Nadu. "Other states are free to compete for investment," Industries, Investment Promotion and Commerce Department official sources said. "Tamil Nadu is confident enough in its strengths to compete and focused enough on delivery to win."

Officials noted Andhra Pradesh had run similar campaigns in Chennai before, in 2018 and again in 2023 ahead of its Global Investors Summit in Visakhapatnam, without comparable controversy. "Investors ultimately decide where to locate based on talent, infrastructure, logistics, supply chains, policy stability and ease of doing business," an industries department official said.

writingonblog uncensored: Tamil Nadu commits Rs264cr to build 65-station ant...

writingonblog uncensored: Tamil Nadu commits Rs264cr to build 65-station ant...: CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu's government has formally sanctioned a Rs264.14cr police architecture built around 65 dedicated "Anti-Narcotics...

Tamil Nadu commits Rs264cr to build 65-station anti-narcotics force under chief minister's direct command

CHENNAI:

Tamil Nadu's government has formally sanctioned a Rs264.14cr police architecture built around 65 dedicated "Anti-Narcotics Task Force" stations and a new state headquarters, cementing an enforcement structure that reports directly to the chief minister rather than through the conventional police chain of command.

The Government order, issued by the home, prohibition and excise department, creates 65 police-inspector-led ANTF stations — one in each of Tamil Nadu's 37 districts and 28 more spread across the state's nine city police commissionerates, with Chennai alone accounting for 12. It also sanctions a 454-post headquarters unit built around ten specialised wings, from a cyber forensics lab to a legal advisory cell, formalising what had begun as a narrower district-level initiative into what the police leadership has termed a "state-wide policing mission."

The financial sanction — Rs245.99cr recurring and Rs18.15cr non-recurring — falls well short of the Rs340.75cr the state's director-general of police had sought in his June proposal, a roughly 22 per cent trim that finance department concurrence appears to have imposed without altering the underlying structure. The gap is most visible in staffing: the DGP's revised plan had called for expanded numbers per unit, and while the government granted increases over the original announcement — sub-inspectors per station rising from two to four, constabulary from five to 20 — the sanctioned headquarters strength of 454 posts draws heavily on redeployment rather than fresh recruitment, with only 392 of those posts newly created.

The order is explicit that the 65 stations will function under the direct control of the chief minister, with an additional director-general of police — a new post, created rather than redeployed — anchoring day-to-day command at the state level. Below that officer sits an inspector-general, and beneath them a split command: one superintendent overseeing operations, cyber forensics, records and legal affairs; a second overseeing intelligence, special investigations and administration.

That structure signals an unusual degree of political ownership over a policing function, and reflects the DGP's own framing in his June letter to government: that a network of 65 police stations could no longer be treated as a "limited specialised function" reporting loosely to district superintendents, but required unified command and dedicated investigative capacity to be effective against what the order describes as an "evolving narcotics ecosystem" — spanning interstate trafficking, dark-web distribution, cryptocurrency payments and synthetic drug manufacturing.

The bulk of the sanctioned spend — Rs198.37cr of the Rs209.51cr allocated to the 65 field stations — goes toward pay and allowances for the 1,625 posts created there. The remainder covers uniforms, fuel, office rent, furniture and a fleet of 65 diesel jeeps and 260 two-wheelers. The headquarters allocation of Rs54.63cr includes Rs7.01cr in non-recurring spend on cyber lab equipment — among it licensed cryptocurrency-tracing and dark-web monitoring software, forensic imaging hardware and a drone-forensics capability — procured on contracts of one to three years.

Because the expenditure has not yet been voted by the legislature, it will initially be drawn as an advance from the state's Contingency Fund, with the DGP directed to prepare draft notes for its formal inclusion in the 2026-27 supplementary estimates — a routine mechanism in Tamil Nadu for sanctioning expenditure ahead of legislative approval, but one that leaves the allocation technically provisional until ratified.

Separately, the order directs the DGP to procure a further Rs3.07cr of computers and accessories under the central government's Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems scheme, funded outside the main sanction.

Roughly a third of the new command structure — 92 posts, including the inspector-general position, all 15 deputy superintendents and the entire 31-strong ministerial staff — is being redeployed rather than newly created, drawn from the existing Anti-Narcotics unit of the Economic Offences, Cyber and Narcotics wing (EBCID). In return, EBCID's ANTF unit must surrender 333 of its 363 sanctioned posts to government, a reallocation that in effect dismantles the state's previous narcotics-enforcement structure to build the new one.

Beyond the police architecture, the order sets out a wider anti-narcotics framework spanning four government departments: police-led supply-side enforcement, health department-run de-addiction and rehabilitation services, school and youth-engagement programmes under the education and sports departments, and community-level "drug-free village" initiatives coordinated through local bodies. Compliance is to be reviewed weekly at the district level, fortnightly by the new additional director-general, and monthly by the state's chief secretary — a monitoring cadence that suggests the government expects, and wants documented, early friction in inter-departmental coordination.

writingonblog uncensored: Industry Sees Balanced Growth Agenda in Tamil Nadu...

writingonblog uncensored: Industry Sees Balanced Growth Agenda in Tamil Nadu...:   CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu's maiden Budget under the TVK government has drawn a positive response from industry bodies and policy experts, ...

Tamil Nadu's new government opens the books — and the gap between ambition and arithmetic

 

CHENNAI:

Tamil Nadu's finance minister N. Marie Wilson presented the state's Revised Budget Estimates for 2026-27 to the legislative assembly on Wednesday, the first budget of the Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam government led by Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay, which took office in May after ending decades of Dravidian-party rule in the state.

The Revised Budget Estimates for 2026-27, tabled a year into an already-passed interim budget from the outgoing administration, set out a state finances picture that is at once ambitious and strained. Total revenue receipts are pegged at ₹3,50,027 crore, up modestly from the interim estimate, while total revenue expenditure has been revised upward to ₹4,05,802 crore — pushing the revenue deficit to ₹55,775 crore, higher than the ₹48,696 crore the outgoing administration had projected before the election. The fiscal deficit is estimated at ₹1,21,819 crore, or 3 per cent of gross state domestic product, which the government says keeps it within the ceiling set by the state's own fiscal responsibility law.

The wider liabilities are the more striking number. The state's total outstanding debt is estimated at ₹10,98,768 crore — 27 per cent of GSDP — a figure the new government has repeatedly invoked since taking office. Wilson's speech leaned on a "White Paper on Financial Management" the administration released shortly after being sworn in, which the minister said showed that Tamil Nadu's debt had doubled over the preceding five years and that the state's own tax collection, revenue deficit and fiscal deficit indicators all trailed those of comparable large states.

A political inheritance, framed as crisis

The budget speech doubled as an extended tribute to Vijay — hailed throughout as "Thaai Maaman," an uncle-like guardian figure, and credited personally with a string of early decisions: a farm loan waiver through co-operative societies, an increase in free household electricity from 100 to 200 units for consumers using up to 500 units bi-monthly, the closure of 717 liquor outlets near schools and religious sites, and new anti-narcotics task forces at the district level. TVK's own MoU tally — seven memoranda of understanding worth ₹35,062 crore since May, with a claimed potential of 14,790 jobs — was cited as early proof of the government's economic credentials.

On the revenue side, the finance minister leaned into an anti-corruption narrative that has become a signature of the new administration: scrapping mandatory certificate requirements that he said had made public tenders "non-competitive," opening cross-department tender eligibility to any registered contractor, and easing entry barriers for small and first-time bidders. A newly imposed privilege fee on liquor manufacturers is expected to raise up to ₹1,000 crore a year, while a push toward "faceless" GST assessment and registration, alongside digitised monitoring of mining activity, is projected to yield roughly ₹15,000 crore in additional revenue. A revenue augmentation committee has also been set up under Montek Singh Ahluwalia, the former deputy chairman of India's erstwhile Planning Commission, to widen the state's tax base.

Industry: courting investors with an AI-branded single window

Tamil Nadu's pitch to industry — long anchored on its manufacturing base and port access — gets a technology refresh. A new state industrial policy is due, alongside a "Tamil Nadu Industrial Capability Directory" mapping the state's manufacturing and supply base for investors, and an AI-powered clearance platform called "Guidance 3.0," which folds into an upgraded Tamil Nadu Single Window Portal. A facilitation desk aimed at non-resident Tamil investors will sit inside the state's investment promotion agency, Guidance.

SIPCOT, the state's industrial parks agency, is to build new industrial estates in less-developed districts at an estimated cost of ₹3,200 crore over five years. Further south, Thoothukudi and Tirunelveli are to be designated a "Space Industrial Investment Zone" built around the spaceport at Kulasekarapattinam, with a Space Vehicle Common Technical Facility being developed jointly with IN-SPACe, India's space-sector regulator. The government also announced "Arivagam," billed as India's first dedicated AI and innovation city, though funding at this stage is limited to a ₹5 crore feasibility study.

In all, the Industries, Investment Promotion and Commerce department has been allocated ₹4,414 crore in the revised estimates — a relatively modest sum against the scale of the ambitions attached to it, with much of the heavy capital spend expected to come through public-private partnerships rather than direct budgetary outlay.

Energy: thermal expansion, a battery storage push, and a costly subsidy bill

The energy department received one of the larger sectoral allocations, at ₹15,828 crore, reflecting the fiscal weight of the government's electricity subsidy commitments — ₹18,860 crore in total subsidies to domestic and agricultural consumers, including ₹1,545 crore attributable specifically to the expanded free-electricity entitlement, plus a further ₹5,000 crore in compensation to the state's power generation and distribution utility.

On generation capacity, the government is pressing ahead with the Udangudi Stage-I and Ennore SEZ thermal projects, expected to add 2,640MW, and an ETPS expansion project valued at roughly ₹8,000 crore under a PPP structure. The ₹5,050 crore Vellimalai pumped-storage hydro project is also being expedited. A new policy to promote battery energy storage systems is intended to position the state as an "BESS Hub" for India, addressing peak demand as coal and renewable capacity are blended.

Transmission investment is significant: a ₹4,000 crore Coimbatore-Ariyalur 765kV line under PPP, a ₹1,390 crore upgrade for Chennai's ultra-high-voltage capacity, and three tranches of a Green Energy Corridor project — the largest, a ₹6,884 crore third phase capable of handling 11,760MW of renewable power, for which the state says it will now seek central financial assistance. A rooftop solar subsidy scheme, dovetailed with the central government's Surya Ghar programme, offers subsidies of up to ₹1 lakh per household, backed by ₹50 crore in the current year, alongside a smart-metering rollout for Chennai and 50 lakh industrial and commercial consumers statewide.

MSMEs and textiles: incremental support, not a step-change

The MSME department — covering a base of 43.47 lakh registered enterprises, the third-largest in India — was allocated ₹2,142 crore, with ₹352 crore for a capital subsidy scheme and ₹225 crore for women entrepreneurs. A "Green Steel Production Initiative," aimed at cleaning up steel rolling mills, carries a five-year outlay of ₹300 crore, with ₹60 crore released this year.

Textiles and handlooms — a ₹1,678 crore department allocation — saw a new Tamil Nadu Institute of Design (₹60 crore), a Tiruppur Textiles Technology Centre (₹10 crore) and a Palmyra Development Corporation (₹16 crore) aimed at the state's neera and palm-jaggery economy, alongside a technical-textiles transformation scheme targeting defence, healthcare and automotive supply chains.

Farm relief and the welfare ledger

Agriculture received ₹14,984 crore, with a further ₹8,028 crore for the co-operation department that channelled the government's flagship loan waiver — ₹5,932 crore written off for 14.43 lakh farmers, with full waivers for loans up to ₹75,000 and partial relief above that threshold. A ₹134 crore Kuruvai package was rushed through after a weak south-west monsoon left the Mettur dam short of water for the usual June opening. School education, the single largest departmental allocation flagged in the speech, received ₹44,527 crore, with new spending lines for campus security and cleaning contracts, school infrastructure upgrades, and a free-laptop scheme for college students costing ₹2,000 crore.

The verdict for investors

For an audience of industrialists and bond investors, the budget's real message sits less in the schemes than in the fiscal trajectory the government has laid out for itself: fiscal deficit easing from 3 per cent of GSDP this year to 2.8 per cent by 2028-29, revenue deficit narrowing from ₹55,775 crore to a projected ₹51,058 crore over the same period, and capital expenditure — the figure most relevant to contractors and infrastructure financiers — rising from ₹56,985 crore this year to a projected ₹83,426 crore in 2028-29. Whether a coalition government leaning heavily on subsidy commitments to consolidate a first electoral mandate can also deliver that capital-spending ramp-up is the question Tamil Nadu's business community will be watching most closely over the next three years.

Industry Sees Balanced Growth Agenda in Tamil Nadu's Maiden Budget

 

CHENNAI:
Tamil Nadu's maiden Budget under the TVK government has drawn a positive response from industry bodies and policy experts, who said it strikes a balance between fiscal discipline, industrial growth and social development while laying the groundwork for the State's long-term economic ambitions.

Nithin Chandra, Senior Partner at Kearney, said the Budget sends an important message that expanding welfare schemes must be backed by stronger fiscal management. While welcoming the proposal to raise ₹16,000 crore through a Revenue Enhancement Committee, he argued that the State's revenue potential remains far greater.

He pointed out that Tamil Nadu has one of the strongest consumption bases among major states but lags in GST realisation. Stamp duty collections have seen little growth over the past five years despite a buoyant property market, while state excise revenues remain well below Karnataka's despite comparable consumption. Chandra also flagged leakages in quarrying and procurement, saying tighter enforcement and greater competition in public procurement could unlock significant revenues and help finance the State's aspiration of becoming a $1.5 trillion economy.

The Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) said the Budget presents a comprehensive roadmap that combines economic growth with investments in human capital and inclusive development. MCCI president A Viswanathan welcomed the focus on manufacturing, infrastructure, MSMEs, technology, skill development and ease of doing business. The Chamber particularly endorsed the proposed Industrial Policy, the SPEED single-window platform, expansion of SIPCOT industrial parks, the Space Industrial Investment Zone, the Tamil Nadu AI Mission and the proposed AI and Innovation City, Arivagam. It also praised plans to establish new SIPCOT parks in industrially backward districts and initiatives to strengthen the textile sector through design, technical textiles and infrastructure upgrades.

Dr GSK Velu, Chairman of FICCI Tamil Nadu State Council, said the Budget's emphasis on fiscal discipline, governance reforms, revenue augmentation and ease of doing business demonstrated the government's commitment to building a resilient economy while sustaining its focus on social welfare, women empowerment and entrepreneurship.

The Southern India Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SICCI) said that it welcomes the proposed internship opportunities for 20,000 youth in the first phase, skill and employability training for one lakh job seekers, and five new Industrial Training Institutes at an outlay of ₹90 crore. Industry linkage will be critical to ensure that course design, assessment and placements are aligned with actual demand. SICCI stands ready to help shape curricula and facilitate internships and placements across its member network.