TN govt is wary of allowing exclusive enclave for Japanese companies, but at the same time does not want to let go the huge $5 billion investment opportunity
Industry-specific special economic zones (SEZs) are fine for economy. But is creating clusters for nationalities of a specific foreign country going a bit too far?
Tamil Nadu is now planning to tweak the characteristics of OneHub, an upcoming industrial township which is turning into an exclusive Japanese enclave. Putting up Indian units and discouraging a similar proposal from Korea are some of the steps being taken to stem any possible social tension in future.
"The OneHub project will be spread over 1,500 acre and they have initially started work on 400 acres where 6-7 companies including Hitachi, Ajinomoto and Takasago have come up. In the second phase, they will go for housing. It's happening exclusively for the Japanese companies. There is also a discussion at the Korea government level where they expressed their desire for a similar Korean park. When we went to Korea, there was also a request. But personally speaking, I am doubtful whether these enclaves of foreigners are good. I am feeling we shouldn't rush into agreeing for any industrial park and township for any particular country," said Tamil Nadu additional chief secretary CV Sankar.
Japanese fetish for exclusive enclaves in foreign lands, eagerness to create island of self-sustained gated community with all available luxuries of modern life is known to India. A decade back, the then communist chief minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee literally offered a whole island on Bay of Bengal to the employees of Mitsubishi Chemical Corp complete with a golf course!
OneHub Chennai, located 50km south of Chennai, has been described by developer Ascendas as an integration of industrial, business, commercial and residential facilities with "lifestyle amenities and eco-friendly infrastructure to facilitate the growth of Japanese and international businesses in India".
It is a consortium project comprising of programme management contractor investment partner, JGC Corporation, and top corporate finance provider Mizuho Bank.
The unique project plans to support a community of more than 1,40,000 people when fully completed.
The prospect of such a homogeneous community is making Tamil Nadu jittery though.
"The MoU that we had with the Japanese developers wasn't drawn up explicitly to exclude non-Japanese companies. It is sort of implied, and they are canvassing only for the Japanese companies. So, what we should do is proactively put some local or non-Japanese companies there. In future in such MoUs, we would try to retain some control on this. Because at the end of the day, this is our land and we can't let them have barricaded enclaves," said Sankar on the sidelines of a roadshow for Global Investors Meet in Tamil Nadu scheduled on September 9-10 this year.
Tamil Nadu is not too eager to annoy the Japanese investors though, as the state is expecting Japan to be a major source of investments during the meet.
"The Japanese are interested in investing in industrial parks, auto components, automated letter machines and also industrial fragrance. In this meet, we are planning to attract at least $5 billion of foreign investments out of about $16 billion or Rs 1 lakh crore that we hope to garner," he said.
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