‘Headless’ Guidance Tamil Nadu loses honcho to AP; govt downplays impact

CHENNAI: Guidance Tamil Nadu, the nodal agency for investment promotion in the State, has remained ‘headless’ for nearly a month even as a business delegation of the State government led by state industries minister TRB Rajaa landed in Davos for the summit of World Economic Forum.

The State government has not appointed a new Managing Director/CEO for Guidance Tamil Nadu for more than a fortnight since IAS officer V Vishnu went on a sabbatical last month to pursue education at Harvard.

Vishnu helmed the premier agency during landmark global investment conclaves organised by the State to woo investments. The State government has yet to appoint the CEO/MD for Guidance Tamil Nadu, ostensibly due to paperwork being delayed by the Pongal holidays.

Highly placed government sources confirmed the delay in the appointment. They said that notification could be expected any time within a week after the top brass in the government finalise the bureaucrat for the coveted job.

It was a double whammy for Guidance, which most recently ‘lost’ one of its senior executives, Sarin Paraparakath, to the neighbouring Andhra Pradesh government. Just ahead of the Davos summit, the AP government led by Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu poached Sarin Paraparakath, who was the senior Vice President of Guidance Tamil Nadu till early December, to give a much-needed investment push to AP.

While industry sources felt that the ‘migration’ of Sarin to Andhra was a “big loss” to Tamil Nadu and a “big catch” by Naidu, the State government sought to downplay the exit as an insignificant development. “There are many executives like him (Sarin) in Guidance TN. He was just one of them. His exit is being blown out of proportion. Giving credit to him for the big-ticket investments fetched by the State is not only an overstatement but unjust. A replacement will be found soon. We have many names on the list,” said an Industries Department official on condition of anonymity.