The Hindu Business Line : Fiscal management

The Tamil Nadu Government deserves to be complimented for its fiscal management efforts, particularly after the very difficult conditions that it faced when it assumed power four years back.

However, little has been achieved by way of creating production and growth centres that would provide more employment opportunities, better distribution of income and growth in real terms.

Not a single large project has come up in the State that can generate a chain of activities. A large petrochemical complex that was planned to be set up by Nagarjuna group in Cuddalore has been given up for all practical purposes after an investment of more than Rs 400 crore. One initiative that was taken by the Tamil Nadu Government was to encourage setting up a number of small units under the Anna Marumalarchi Scheme. But this has also not taken off due to want of forward planning with regard to viable and appropriate schemes.

The opportunity to encourage and enable the distilleries in Tamil Nadu to set up facilities for production of alcohol to blend with petrol has been lost due to want of government permission.

There has been reluctance on the part of the government even to provide permission for the use of molasses for various productive purposes, though it is a good raw material for the production of a number of important downstream products, which are now imported.

The State Government should find some method of involving technologists and engineers in the planning effort instead of making it a mere political and bureaucratic exercise.

N. S. Venkataraman

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