For the industries across the State, the main relief in the last five years or so is availability of electricity.
Some of them had made representations and met former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa too in this regard.
Having suffered more than seven hours of power cut a day, which crippled normal activity, the industries have adequate power supply now. Former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa took up the power problem in the State as a single point agenda and has made the State power surplus, which is a huge benefit for the industries, said M. Senthil Kumar, chairman of Southern India Mills’ Association (SIMA).
There were issues related to wind energy evacuation, grid connectivity for wind power, and peak hour restrictions for industries that S. Dinakaran, former chairman of the association once explained to Ms. Jayalalithaa. She had sorted out all those, says T. Rajkumar, another former chairman of SIMA.
“She supported women employment and spoke about it in the Assembly too,” added Mr. Senthil Kumar. “She used to be prepared and would know details of the subjects about which we were to interact with her whenever we met her,” he says.
T. Kannan, fomer chairman of the association, met her on September 12 and discussed about the Cuddalore textile processing park project. “She gave immediate instructions to take up the issues,” he said.
According to Vanitha Mohan, Managing Trustee of Siruthuli, it was over a decade ago when Siruthuli was still in the nascent stage and she met the then Chief Minister Jayalalithaa about the project. “She was very much interested and asked pointed questions and paid attention to details,” she says. The State Government had then focused on rain water harvesting structures. Ms. Mohan met Ms. Jayalalithaa a few years ago again and explained how Siruthuli had constructed rain water harvesting structures across the city. Water conservation and rain water harvesting were some of the subjects in which Ms. Jayalalithaa had shown interest and focused, she said.
