Tamil Nadu on the road to becoming the MSME Behemoth of the country

The Tamil Nadu government is targeting Rs 2 lakh crore worth investments in the next four years in the MSME sector as it unveiled a new policy on February 16th to make the state a vibrant eco-system for MSMEs and startups.

The policy which was released by Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami also plans to create jobs for 20 lakh persons in the sector and increase the share of exports from MSMEs in the state by 25 per cent.

M-TIPB to provide escort services to prospective foreign investors in the MSME sector

As per the policy, MSME Trade and Investment Bureau (M-TIPB) will provide escort services to prospective foreign investors in the MSME sector. M-TIPB will facilitate the entrepreneurs for availing clearances from the Single Window Portal and escort them for setting up of industries and availing incentives to them. The vendor MSMEs for the large enterprises will also be identified by M-TIPB. This will accomplish the goal of making the state Asia’s most favoured investment destination for MSMEs as envisaged in the Vision 2023 document.

The M-TIPB will play an active role to support the MSMEs for participation in national and international trade fairs and exhibitions. The overseas markets will be explored for MSME products. Similarly, District Industries Centres (DIC) will play an active role for the promotion of export hubs in the districts after analysing the export potential in the districts in coordination with Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT).

Under the policy, the state will set up a corpus of Rs 500 crore for the Estate Infrastructure Development and Maintenance Fund for upgradation and better maintenance of TANSIDCO estates. Initially an amount of Rs 100 crore (50% by TANSIDCO and 50% by the state government), will be earmarked for this purpose. Demand-driven additional special infrastructure in existing TANSIDCO industrial estates will be provided by contributing up to 50% of the cost from this fund, with the rest to be met by the user industry associations or bank loans with the condition that the same would be maintained through user charges.

Infrastructure support for privately developed industrial estates enhanced from Rs 10 cr to Rs 15 cr

It is learnt that infrastructure support for privately developed industrial estates is being enhanced from Rs 10 crore per estate to Rs 15 crore per estate. Similarly the infrastructure support for shifting the existing units will be enhanced from Rs 15 crore per estate to Rs 20 crore per estate.

In a bid to improve competitiveness and productivity in MSMEs, the state MSME Department will design an MSME Manufacturing Competitiveness and Sustainability Initiative (MC&SI) to incentivize resource efficiency, environmental sustainability, and adoption of international product or process quality standards, as per the newly released policy.