TAMILNADU

The State Industries Promotion Corporation ofTamil Nadu(Sipcot) has earmarked about 125 acres of land at its Manapparai industrial park in Trichy for setting up an aerospace park to promote investments in the sector as well as in DEFENCE manufacturing. Trichy is one of the five nodal cities of the Nadu defence industrial corridor. About 131 acres has also been allotted to Tamil Nadu Small Industries Development Corporation (Sidco) for promoting the Micro, Small and Medium enterprises (MSME) sector.

Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (Tidco) will be the nodal agency for promoting the aerospace park. Meanwhile, Sidco has paid the cost of the 131 acres of land in Manapparai, and the process of making layouts to create industrial plots for MSMEs is progressing. A minimum of 20 cents and a maximum of 1 acre of industrial land will be allocated to individual MSMEs for launching production units. Sidco said that MSMEs in the food and engineering fabrication business will benefit from the new small-scale industrial park. Apart from these allocations and reservations, officials said that a major conglomerate is in talks with Sipcot for booking more than 300 acres of land in Manapparai for an electric vehicle manufacturing unit.

TheTamil Nadugovernment reiterated that it would never allow theKarnatakagovernmentsMekedatudam plan across the riverCauverynear the inter-state border.

The ministers remarks came in the wake of theNational Green Tribunaltaking suo motu cognizance of a report published on April 15, alleging that some steps were being taken and materials had been collected near the proposed project area. The tribunal constituted a four-member committee of the Union Environment ministry, Cauvery Water Management Authority, Cauvery Neeravari Nigam Limited and forest department of Karnataka government to inspect the area in question and submit a factual as well as action taken report, if there was any violation.

The Nadu governments contempt petitions against the project appraisal directorate of Central Water Commission and the secretary of Karnataka Resources“>Water Resources department in December 2018 are pending in The Supreme Court.

Abillto empower the to appoint vice-chancellors forTamil Nadu Veterinaryand Animal Sciences University (TANUVAS) was introduced in the assembly to amend the TANUVAS Act, 1989, follows a series of bills passed in the assembly.

All these bills empower the state government to appoint VCs instead of the governor appointing them. When the bill was introduced, the AIADMK opposed it at the introductory stage. The governor is yet to give assent to any of the bills.

K N Nehru introduces bill to collect edu tax in Urban Local Bodies: Minister for municipal administration K N Nehru introduced a bill to levy and collect Education tax in urban local bodies. The bill, to amend the Tamil Nadu Urban Local Bodies Act, 1998, empowers the local bodies to levy education tax of not more than 5% of annual value of all lands, buildings, Telecommunication towers and storage structures built on or attached to the land, as determined by the council concerned.

Lessons learnt during last years lockdown are seemingly helping large industries in Nadu handle production during the second wave of the infection.

However, smaller businesses, especially MSMEs who are yet to come out of debts of the first wave, feel any further downturn will create a huge dent in their balance sheets.

From vaccinating senior workers, arranging transportation, sourcing raw materials, providing accommodation near factory premises and re-aligning operations, big companies are confident of overcoming the current tide.

The allocation of 1,000 crore to the Trichy-Nagapattinam agro-industrial corridor in the agriculturebudgettabled has revived the project that was dormant for two years.
While the allocation will be utilised to create and support systems for Growth of Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture and food industries in five central districts, Sidco too has a separate plan to create new industrial estates in Thanjavur and Tiruvarur districts with special focus on Food Processing sector.
The corridor will primarily focus on encouraging value-added products from food and Cash Crops and promulgating farmers organisations to make a foray into food processing sector to consider export opportunities. Fetching lucrative procurement prices for farmers and EMPLOYMENT generation are key objectives of the corridor.

The Vandampalai industrial estate and Palayapatti industrial estate in Thanjavur district will play a crucial role in the proposed agro-industrial corridor.
The corridor was first proposed in 2021 for Trichy, Thanjavur, Tiruvarur, Nagapattinam and Mayiladuthurai districts. Fund allocation has come in the backdrop of FaMe TN (Facilitating MSMEs in Tamil Nadu) completing the detailed project report for the corridor in consultation with MSMEs and stakeholders. The corridor will develop a connectivity map by linking the Trichy international airport and key RAILWAY stations.

Residents ofMintand surrounding areas in Chennai will soon get another spot to spend their evenings and early morning hours.

A park in the area, which is under construction, will be open to the public by April this year.

Under theSingara Chennai2.0 scheme, the park is being constructed under the Mint flyover at a cost of Rs 5 crore.

The park will have a walkers path, area for senior citizens, open air gym and facilities, sculptures and art work, tensile fabric structures, toilets and parking.

A total of 1,000 saplings have been planted in the park by local residents in memory of their loved ones. These will be maintained by theGreater Chennai Corporation.

After hitting a peak in 2011 in terms of production and capacity use, the sugar inTamil Naduhas been down since 2016. The area under sugarcane fell with water scarcity and 15 of the 43 sugar mills in the state downed shutters.

The bountiful rain in 2021 has seen green shoots sprouting, but a turnaround is at least a couple of cutting seasons away. A hand from the government would help, say mill owners. This is an industry that caters to five lakh farmers, provides direct and indirect EMPLOYMENT to two lakh and generates around `4,500 crore in revenue.

Unlike in other states, mills in Tamil Nadu have a unique problem. The Centre fixes the Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) per tonne at 9.5% recovery and including the farmers transport cost in bringing cane to the mills. But Tamil Nadu millers have to pay transport cost over and above FRP and the sugar they recover from a tonne of cane is also less.