TN seeks expansion of airports

Participating in a meeting convened by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, through video conference, on Monday, Thiaga Rajan urged the Union Government to declare the Madurai airport as an International Airport soon to facilitate more trade and flights to the regions, pointing out that land acquisition for its expansion had been done and transferred to Airports Authority of India

           

State Finance Minister Palanivel Thiaga Rajan has sought the Union government's cooperation to resolve the bottlenecks faced in the expansion of 4 major airports . Chennai, Coimbatore, Tiruchirappalli and Thoothukudi.

Participating in a meeting convened by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, through video conference, on Monday, Thiaga Rajan urged the Union Government to declare the Madurai airport as an International Airport soon to facilitate more trade and flights to the regions, pointing out that land acquisition for its expansion had been done and transferred to Airports Authority of India.

In the meeting, called to discuss with Chief Ministers and State Finance Ministers steps to promote investment, infrastructure development and economic growth in the country, Thiaga Rajan emphasized on the need to take up the master plan for expansion of Thoothukudi port with the Outer Harbour project.

He sought the upgrading of the entire length of Chennai-Kanyakumari to 8 lanes in order to reduce logistic costs for the industries and urged the Government to speed up 11 pending NHAI highway projects.

Demanding a comprehensive revival package for MSMEs which have been adversely affected by the pandemic, Thiaga Rajan said that in general the economy of the State had been resilient in terms of revenue and investment.

Chief Minister M. K. Stalin had presided over two investment conclaves where 50 MoUs with an investment commitment of 21.021 crore and employment potential of around one lakh jobs were signed.

Appreciating the National Single Window Portal (Maadhyam) for obtaining GOI related clearances from various departments, he recommended the inclusion of aftercare services and grievance redress mechanism in the platform.

Stating that the State was taking several steps to improve the condition of Power DISCOMs, he requested the Union Government to ensure adequate and continuous supply of coal and to help in the development of and access to supplies of Chandrabila Coal Block in Odisha.

He wanted permission for the States to borrow unconditionally within the prescribed limits and such limits should be decided based on the capacity of the State to absorb higher investments.

"On similar lines, the restriction of one project per annum per State from a given external agency should be discontinued to allow market mechanisms to function freely. These measures would benefit the State of Tamil Nadu which is considered an attractive investment destination", he said.

The Minister requested the Union Government to formulate a data sharing protocol that allowed the states access to data like income tax, Aadhaar, Covid, among others, which would supplement efforts of states towards a data-driven administration

Media: DECCAN CHRONICLE