Chennai: Forget the political turmoil in the state, but the economics of Tamil Nadu during the year 2017 has reached an all-time low and the state’s debt by 2018 is to reach a staggering Rs 3.5 lakh crore. With economy in ICU, the infrastructure development and the industrial growth of Tamil Nadu are also badly hit and for this simple reason, the state failed to conduct the second phase of global investors meet (GIM) in 2017. Former chief minister J. Jayalalithaa during the 2015 global investors meet announced that GIM would be held once in every two years, but the administrators missed the deadline, as the market situation was not conducive for TN.
Tamil Nadu has not earned any recent investments from the corporate companies. There were statements in 2016, about the corporate investments, but this faded away and by 2017, the state saw no major investor coming to Tamil Nadu. Chennai dubbed as the Detroit of Asia was also mauled by GST and there were hardly significant growth in all the three quarters of the year 2017.
And now with industry captains preferring Telengana and Andhra over Tamil Nadu, the state is left to focus on minor investments and expansion of companies that already have a base in TN. The state also failed in completing the major state-Centre joint venture projects like Chennai elevated corridor and Chennai metro rail. Left without cash surplus the state had also been pleading with the centre seeking funds under various schemes ranging from smart city, Jawaharlal Nehru urban renewal mission, disaster relief and sarva sikshya abhiyan. Chennai and Ennore port which has shown signs of growth is relying on the state for the elevated corridors and highways strengthening the port connectivity with Sriperumbudur and Kancheepururam but again this had also taken a beating with Rs 1815 crore project lying in limbo.
Even the government websites developed to seek the attention of global investors has nothing major to update during the year 2017 and the most of the figures shared for the investors date back to January 2016. According to the government of India data, Tamil Nadu during the period May 2011 to January 2016 attracted cumulative investments to a tune of Rs 137328 crores, but no break up was given for the period 2015 and 2016 attracted by Tamil Nadu. Even the accumulative investments proposals of Rs.137328 crores by and large failed to transform during the year 2017.
