Guidance, the nodal agency of Tamil Nadu government for investment promotion and single-window facilitation, has restructured its operations to bring in more investment proposals into the State.
Apart from creating country-specific desks and sector-specific desks, the department has brought in the best brains from the industry in various roles. A 40-member young team including MBA graduates, legal experts and analysts is working at the Guidance’s, (formerly known as the Guidance Bureau), head office in Egmore, with a mandate to find potential investors and at the same time convert Memorandums of Understanding that were signed during the two Global Investors Meet (GIM) into actual investments.
“We have set up a matrix structure with desks which will look into country-specific investor requirements and sector-specific needs. We have a buddy system for each sector – this means each sector will have 2-3 people who will track sector-specific investments and help companies with getting clearances and scouting for land,” Neeraj Mittal, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Guidance Tamil Nadu, said. He added that the young team has been cherry-picked through an interview conducted by the department. “We had one government official and three people from the industry in the interview panel. This helped us pick candidates who have a passion to bring in investments,” he said adding that the Chief Minister is reviewing all these activities.
Another senior government official said that Chief Minister Edappadi. K.Palaniswami has asked the Industries Department and Guidance to pro-actively participate in all events nationally and globally. “Teams are being sent out to sell Tamil Nadu as an investment destination,” he added.
Over the last two months, the State government has ensured that deals that were inked during the two GIMs commence production and in some cases, they have laid the foundation stones too. Industrialists from across the State also said that officials from the State government are calling them for meetings and asking them what best can be done for businesses to run smoothly and for expansion.
P. Ravichandran, president, Danfoss India, said, “They are very investor-centric and there is renewed focus to grow and expand into new sectors including promoting southern districts as attractive destinations for investments. The State government has made significant steps in not only re-branding the Guidance Bureau but has undertaken several measures to attract new investments.”
Ramkumar Ramamoorthy, president of The Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI), said that for several States in India, mind-share is greater than market share. “In Tamil Nadu, despite being the second-largest contributor to the GDP in India and growing at a higher clip than the national average, mind-share continues to trail market share.” he said. “In this context, curating a series of investment-linked events, meetings with diplomats from dozens of countries, visits of State leaders to different countries creates a drum beat of positive mind-share, locally and globally. In addition, setting up of country-specific platforms will help provide customised attention to different profiles of investors and help find solutions to their challenges. Collectively, these initiatives by Guidance, Tamil Nadu should significantly boost mind-share which is quite important given that every State in the world is competing for the same opportunity pie,” he said.
