Aim is to Make Tamil Nadu The Manufacturing and Knowledge Capital: T.R.B. Rajaa

Before his induction to the state cabinet as Minister for Industries in 2023, Dr. T.R.B. Rajaa was a member of the State Planning Commission. He has been representing Mannarkudi Assembly constituency continuously since his electoral debut in 2011. He won comfortably from the same seat in 2016 and 2021. Dr. Rajaa who has a doctorate in Counselling Psychology is committed to making Tamil Nadu the manufacturing hub of India.

- A S Panneerselvan

You have said that you will stop brain drain and give individuals the facility to learn and research here. How do you propose to do that?

Retaining talent is key to leverage the upside of a knowledge economy hence its essential that highly skilled young talent is given the right research ecosystem and high-end salaries to stem the brain drain. To ensure this we are actively attracting high-end Design / R&D jobs and are enhancing our local capabilities in learning and research. Tamil Nadu is also leveraging its position as the R&D capital of India. Being the state with the highest number of research fellows as well as patents filed in India, our focus is on strengthening the research ecosystem further, and partnering with institutions such as the IIT Madras Research Park. We are actively creating synergies between industry and academia, ensuring that the necessary infrastructure is in place for both companies and institutions to establish their R&D centres and Global Capability Centers (GCCs) here. This approach has already attracted several major companies including Roche, Hitachi Energy, UPS, Akkodis, Qualcomm, and Boeing, to set up their R&D and GCC in Tamil Nadu. Our R&D policy, enhanced with the right incentives, aims to attract even more institutions to our state. We also incentivise jobs with salaries of over One Lakh rupees which is a win-win situation for both the companies and the talent.