Guidance Bureau, the nodal agency of Tamil Nadu government for investment promotion and single-window facilitation, has restructured its operations to bring in more investment proposals into the State.
Apart from creating country-specific desks and sector-specific desks, the department has brought in the best brains from the industry in various roles. A 40-member young team, including MBA graduates, legal experts and analysts, is working at Guidance, (formerly known as the Guidance Bureau), head office in Egmore, with a mandate to find potential investors and convert Memorandums of Understanding, signed during the two Global Investors Meet (GIM), into investments.
Matrix structure
“We have set up a matrix structure with desks. We have a buddy system for each sector — this means each sector will have 2-3 people who will track sector-specific investments and help companies with getting clearances and scouting for land,” Neeraj Mittal, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Guidance Tamil Nadu, said.
The young team has been cherry-picked through an interview conducted by the department. “We had one government official and three persons from the industry on the interview panel. This helped us pick candidates who have a passion to bring in investments,” he said adding that the Chief Minister is reviewing all these activities.
Another senior government official said Chief Minister Edappadi. K.Palaniswami has asked the Industries Department and Guidance to pro-actively participate in all events nationally and globally. “Teams are being sent out to sell Tamil Nadu as an investment destination,” he added.
Over the last two months, the State government ensured that on deals that were inked during the two GIMs production started, and in some cases, they laid the foundation stones too. Industrialists from across the State also said that officials from the State government are calling them for meetings and asking them what best could be done for businesses to run smoothly and for expansion.
Investor-centric
P. Ravichandran, president, Danfoss India, said, “They are very investor-centric and there is renewed focus to grow and expand into new sectors, including promoting southern districts, as attractive destinations for investments. The State government has made significant steps in not only re-branding the Guidance Bureau but has undertaken several measures to attract new investments.”
Ramkumar Ramamoorthy, president of The Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI), said for several States in India, mindshare is greater than market share. “In Tamil Nadu, despite being the second-largest contributor to the GDP in India and growing at a higher clip than the national average, mindshare continues to trail market share.” he said.
“Curating a series of investment-linked events, meetings with diplomats from dozens of countries, visits of State leaders to different countries create a drumbeat of positive mindshare, locally and globally. In addition, setting up of country-specific platforms will help in providing customised attention to different profiles of investors and help find solutions to their challenges. Collectively, these initiatives by Guidance, Tamil Nadu should significantly boost mindshare, which is quite important given that every State in the world is competing for the same opportunity pie,” he said.
