The Tamil Nadu government and the Fast Track Task Force (FTTF) set up by the Department of Electronics and IT, to re-establish growth in mobile handsets and component manufacturing eco-system in India want to ‘break the ice’ and revive the Nokia facility at Sriperumbudur, near Chennai. For this, the State government has designated IT Secretary TK Ramachandran as member of the FTTF.
“All these days no dialogue was happening. People were sulking. But now we want to revive the plant and the Tamil Nadu government is also very positive,” said Pankaj Mohindroo, national president, Indian Cellular Association (ICA), who is also the Chairman of the FTTF. “It’s not an easy task, but we will revive it,” he added.
On Friday, Pankaj Mohindroo along with Josh Foulger, co-chairman of the task force and Country Head & MD – Foxconn India, met up with Tamil Nadu Industry Minister P Thangamani, State Industry Secretary CV Sankar, IT Secretary TK Ramachandran and Tamil Nadu Industries Guidance Bureau Executive Vice Chairman M Velmurugan. This was first meeting after the closure of the global handset-maker last year. Some of the suggestions made during the discussion were a revival package, housing more than one handset maker at the facility. “Tamil Nadu will come up with a revival package along with the Central government. We are also telling people that the sentiments have improved here and Tamil Nadu is warm and embracing,” Mr Mohindroo said.
“The meeting lasted for an hour and questions were raised about the freezing of assets,” said a government official, who wished anonymity.
Mr Mohindroo said, “We are working feverishly on this issue (asset freeze).” He also made it clear that Nokia may not start operations here again as it is not their business any more. “There should be somebody else. We need to find that company,” he said.
15 lakh jobs
The task force has been given an assignment to create 15 lakh jobs by 2019 in the mobile manufacturing space. Of this, 10 per cent of job pool can be got from Tamil Nadu without any additional investment, adds Mr. Mohindroo. The revival of the facility formerly operated by Nokia is very important for the task force as they have a target of making 500 million handsets in India by 2019.
Earlier this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in Rajya Sabha that the Nokia plant should start functioning again and people will get employment. A few weeks back the ICA had written to Chief Minister Jayalalithaa for setting up of a fast track committee in the State.
The Nokia plant in Chennai was involved in two legal cases - one with the State tax authorities and another over a royalty of Rs. 21,000-crore paid to its parent company in Finland. In 2013, Nokia sold its devices and services business to Microsoft. The Chennai plant was not included in the deal because of legal issues. The plant downed shutters in November 2014.
