The second edition of the Global Investors’ Meet (GIM), which was organised by the AIADMK government in January 2019 under the leadership of Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami, has seen investments of around ₹1,01,485 crore materialise so far, as against the 304 MoUs that were signed, entailing investments to the tune of ₹2,68,296 crore. Of the 304 deals, 20 have been dropped, while 18 have been put on hold.
Besides, the MSME Department had signed 12,360 MoUs worth ₹32,205 crore.
According to information shared by officials, of the 147 MoUs inked by the Industries Department, 96 have commenced commercial production (essentially, companies invest the committed amount in a phased manner), and 14 are being implemented. Eighteen projects, worth over ₹21,000 crore, have been dropped, while 16 have been put on hold. A few are yet to commence any activity.
The Energy Department signed 16 deals, of which six have commenced operations and six others are under construction. Land identification is under way for one project, and two others have been put on hold. Another project has been dropped.
In the Information Technology (IT) sector, 11 deals were signed, and only one has commenced production and two are yet to commence any activity. Eight projects are under various stages of implementation, such as construction, clearances and land identification.
One of the companies whose projects were yet to take off said that due to the COVID-19 lockdown, firms had switched to work from home mode, and that was why they were taking time to invest.
The second edition of GIM saw MoUs signed in relatively new sectors like housing, tourism and education. As many as 66 deals were signed by the Housing Department, of which 42 were inked on behalf of the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA), while the remaining 24 were signed on behalf of the Directorate of Town and Country Planning (DTCP).
Details furnished by Guidance show that the 42 projects (CMDA) are all under implementation. Details of actual investments could not be ascertained as CMDA has said that “there were so many applications by a specific applicant that they could not isolate the MoU applications”.
They have given the overall picture of the applications made by the applicants who had entered into MoUs. Details of projects signed on behalf of DTCP show that nine are under implementation, while the remaining 15 are yet to commence any activity or are in the process of doing so.
In tourism, one project was shelved out of a total of eight MoUs. Five are under implementation, while two are yet to commence any activity. The two deals signed by the Agriculture Department are also under implementation.
Besides, 51 MoUs were signed in the higher education space with several engineering and arts and science colleges across Tamil Nadu.
Data show that 42 projects have taken off, but data on how much each of these colleges has spent so far was not shared.
Of the three MoUs signed by the School Education Department, one has taken off, while the other two are under implementation. Whether the current government would take steps to make all these pending projects materialise remains to be seen.
