‘AIADMK didn’t utilize cent of 15K acres procured in DMK regime’

CHENNAI: State industries minister T M Anbarasan on Thursday informed the State Assembly that the 2001-06 AIADMK regime did not utilize a cent of the 15,000 acres acquired by the 1996-2001 DMK regime.

Rebutting the claim of senior AIADMK legislator K P Munusamy that Tamil Nadu developed in their tenure, the MSME minister, replying to the debate on the demand for grants for his department in the State Assembly, said that about 15,000 acres spread across 50 villages in erstwhile integrated Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur districts were acquired in Sriperumbudur, Sunguvarchattiram, Mambakkam, Pillaipakkam, Oragadam and Maraimalai Nagar during the 1996-2001 DMK tenure.

"Not a single factory was set up in even a cent of the acquired land in the subsequent 2001-06 AIADMK regime. During the 2006-11 DMK tenure, a major industrial revolution was ushered in by wooing Rs 1.5 lakh crore foreign investment and establishing over a 1,000 industries. About eight lakh direct and 15 lakh indirect jobs were created because of that," minister Anbarasan told the House.

Record number of licences issued through single window portal

He also informed the Assembly that the government has issued a record number of licences to MSMEs through the single window portal 2.0 last year. Adding that the Single Window Portal 2.0 was launched to resolve the difficulties in issue of industrial licences to entrepreneurs, the minister pointed out about 17,600 applications were received from MSMEs and 15,441 licences have been issued under the portal.

A record 9,603 licences were issued last year alone, he added.