To ward off competition from six States in the country, Tamil Nadu should focus on easing the process of doing business and providing quality power, FICCI Secretary General Rajiv Kumar said on Monday.
Making a presentation at FICCI National Executive Committee Meeting on ‘Empowering India – Redesigning G2B relations in Tamil Nadu’, he said Tamil Nadu scored over others in two parameters – creation of a large-scale automotive hub and facility for online submission of building plans in Chennai. “But to stay in the race, it has to provide quality power at reasonable prices and make available skilled manpower” .
The document prepared in association with Bain and Company describes the 10 best practices and key initiatives adopted by seven states – Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal. According to the report, Gujarat led the pack in seven areas – land acquisition, computerisation of land records to accelerate registration time, creation of industrial clusters, labour reforms, environment-related compliances, availability of quality power and multiple ways of disseminating information.
The second place is occupied by Karnataka in allowing property registration anywhere, online submission and computerised approval of building plans in Bangalore urban area and GIS-based property tax payment system. The third slot is shared by Andhra Pradesh (land acquisition and implementation of single window clearance mechanism), Rajasthan (single window clearance and simplified VAT system), Maharashtra (labour reforms and availability of information) and Tamil Nadu. West Bengal scores due to its initiative in the power sector to reduce aggregate transmission and commercial losses.
Finance Minister O. Panneerselvam explained Vision 2023 and said that over the next 11 years Tamil Nadu would aim to grow its GSDP at 11 per cent a year which would be 20 per cent more than the expected national GDP growth rate.
Industries Minister P. Thangamani said the State was set to sign pacts with 27 firms that would bring cumulative investments of over Rs.30,000 crore. In the last one year, the State had attracted an investment of Rs.5,800 crore by signing pact with five major firms.
Kamal Haasan, Chairman, FICCI Entertainment Committee, requested the Chief Minister Jayalalithaa to join FICCI Frames as part of celebrations of 100 years of Indian cinema.
