The Tamil Nadu Government plans to set up a Financial City on the outskirts of Chennai. Reports stated that the state administration is looking at Sriperumbudur or Oragadam for the proposed city, which is expected to create around 30,000 jobs.
It may be noted that in 2009, the then Deputy Chief Minister and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader M K Stalin said that the State Government is looking at Shollinganallur, in the IT Corridor of Chennai, to set up a Financial City. Tamilnadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO) had identified 180 acres of land in Sholinganallur - Perumbakkam villages for the proposed Financial City. However the project did not take off.
Now the J Jayalalithaa-led AIADMK Government has decided to commence the project and is said to be looking for space in Sriperumbudur or Oragadam, where most of the MNCs are located. Some of them include Hyundai, Nokia, Flextronics, Nissan, Daimler, Samsung, Saint Gobain among others.
Recently Tamil Nadu Finance Minister O Panneerselvam met the Union Minister for Finance Arun Jaitley and requested that Central Government to consider Chennai as an International Finance Centre in addition to Mumbai and consider policy, regulatory and administrative measures necessary to establish such International Finance Centre in Chennai.
Sources said that the Financial City would offer world class infrastructure that would initially focus on attracting core financial activities such as banking, insurance, re-insurance, risk management, actuarial services, wealth management services etc.
The City could also house IT product and solution vendor teams to specifically cater to the needs of these financial institutions and also include IT infrastructure management and customer servicing for the financial institutions. It would also have training centres, staff training colleges and relevant educational institutions.
The previous government's plan was to implement the project likely in phases based on the recommendations of the feasibility study. It has also proposed to study other financial cities, including the one in Singapore, prior to setting up of the building.