Industries Minister T.R.B. Rajaa on Wednesday alleged that every time Tamil Nadu secured investments, someone somewhere concocted a new conspiracy theory.
According to him, a few politicians regularly choose to cast aspersions on the State’s industrial progress. “Such claims are not only unsubstantiated, but also ignore the significant and demonstrable strides that the State made over the past four years,” he said.
According to data shared by Mr. Rajaa, since 2021, Tamil Nadu has signed 1,016 Memorandum of Understandings (MoUs) involving a cumulative committed investment of ₹11.4 lakh crore, with employment potential of more than 34 lakh jobs.
Land has been acquired for 809 of these projects, accounting for over 78% of all MoUs. These are at various stages of implementation, including commercial production, trial runs, partial operations and active construction.
“We have always been clear about how to track conversion of projects: it is based on the stage of the project, as mentioned. It is childish to assume that the entire investment amount of the MoUs signed would be spent by the investors on day one. We have always said that MoUs are investment “commitments”, and it is, therefore, absurd to assume that all the investment commitments announced are equal to investments made immediately,” Mr. Rajaa said.
