The Hindu Business Line : `TN needs to improve infrastructure'

Tamil Nadu needs to have a holistic and competitive strategy in place to attract more investment in the area of electronic hardware manufacturing, according to Mr Kapil Dev Singh, Country Manager, International Data Corporation, a global consultancy company.

"Today, it is not important to attract investment. It is important that all the investment that comes to India should come to the State." And, for this a holistic and competitive strategy is required. Other States such as Uttaranchal, Maharashtra and West Bengal are also vying to get more investment in this sector, he said at Connect 2006, an ICT event organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry and the Tamil Nadu Government.

Mr Jukka Lehtela, Director, Operations, Nokia India Ltd, said though overall business climate has improved, Tamil Nadu still needs to do a lot of work on infrastructure. For instance, 40,000 to 60,000 employees would be working in and around Sriperumbudur in the next few years. The existing roads cannot handle this. The Railways need to be operational to the area, he said.

Nokia currently employs about 3,500 at its Sriperumbudur plant, and recruits about 100 people in a month, and sometimes even more. The State Government should provide good housing facilities in and around Sriperumbudur. "We cannot be doing this and it is the responsibility of the State Government," he said.

Mr Lehtela said by 2007 eight key suppliers would be housed within the Nokia special economic zone. Once fully operational by 2008, the Nokia Telecom Park would employ over 20,000 people. Nokia exports its products to eight different countries and recently started exports to West Asia and Africa, he said.

`Good overall environment'

According to Mr Shaktikanta Das, Tamil Nadu Industry Secretary, the overall business environment, including physical environment such as roads and ports, in the State was good. Also, the State produces abundant manpower - about 80,000 engineers pass out of 254 colleges every year.

However, one major question being raised often is employability of these engineers - only 30 per cent of them are employable. "We are aware of this issue, and are taking steps to make the rest 70 per cent employable," he said.

Mr Subroto Bagchi, CEO, MindTree Consulting, said the company would be employing about 5,000 people at its Chennai facility in the next five years.

More Stories on : Hardware | Infrastructure | Tamil Nadu

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