Tamil Nadu Industries Minister TRB Rajaa termed the column of former chief minister and leader of the opposition Edappadi K Palaniswami as ‘political malice, wantonly misinterpreted numbers and half-truth.’ Rajaa gave facts and figures to prove him wrong. Palaniswami had claimed that the MoUs signed during GIM 2024 had not yielded much investment.
However, Rajaa, in a statement, said that out of the ₹6.64 lakh crore investments committed during GIM 2024 across 632 MoUs, 72 per cent have already reached the stage of seeking approvals and 391 projects - over 62 per cent - have begun construction. The industries department has pulled off record conversion. “This is not the final number, and we will convert many more MoUs by the end of this year,” he said in a statement.
On the Chennai-Kanyakumari Industrial Corridor, which had been stagnating earlier, Rajaa said 572 km of the 582 km of highway works have been completed. Out of the 16 packages, seven are already open, and all the rest have crossed 90 per cent progress, said Tamil Nadu Industries Minister TRB Rajaa.
On the Chennai-Bengaluru Industrial Corridor, even though land constraints prevented SPV-based development at Ponneri, the government went ahead with massive infrastructure investments. This includes the Parandur Airport, Knowledge City, Panapakkam Industrial Park in Ranipet (with Tata-JLR and Hong Fu) and the EV park at Manallur.
On the defence and logistics sector the government has carried the project forward despite minimal support from the Centre. While the Centre has allocated ₹137 crore under the Defence Testing Scheme, the State has attracted over ₹20,000 crore in commitments for the Tamil Nadu Defence Industrial Corridor, Rajaa said.