Auto City, suppliers park, development centre proposed.

A 1,000-ha Auto City, an Automotive Suppliers Park and an Automotive Industrial Development Centre to facilitate investments in the sector are key components of the Tamil Nadu Automobile and Auto Components Policy 2014 announced by the Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa recently.

The first such dedicated policy for the automobile sector by the State Government, has adopted the theme 'Tamil Nadu, the Partner in Automotive Sector Investment,' as a long-term strategy to double production volumes every five years to reach a capacity of 5 million vehicles by 2020.

There are now six car manufacturers in and around Chennai - Ford, Hyundai, Renault, Nissan, Mitsubishi and BMW - with a total annual capacity of 1.3 million units. Apart from this, there are a range of commercial vehicle manufacturers, two-wheelers and earth moving equipment. The policy provides a 5-10 per cent rebate on cost of land from the State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu depending on the size of investment in automobile projects; automobile hubs and clusters will get an incentive of 50 per cent stamp duty concession and capital subsidy of 5 per cent.

These are in addition to the incentives spelt out under the New Industrial Policy 2014. This policy provides a range of incentives investments from mega projects involving investments of Rs. 500-1,500 crore to ultra mega projects, involving investments of more than Rs. 5,000 crore.

The State Government will constitute an automobile and auto components industry consultative committee led by the Chief Minister. It will include representatives from industry organisations such as SIAM, ACMA and CII.

HBL