Annamalai tech alumni to get ‘dream’ industrial park

Going off the beaten track, the alumni association of Tamil Nadu’s Annamalai University is embarking on a project that will help the institute’s expat techpreneurs realise their dreams of setting up own businesses in the country. The alumni association is planning to set up an exclusive industrial park to cater to the expatriate engineering entrepreneurs who plan to shift their overseas businesses to India.

“We are close to buying land for the industrial estate either at the auto cluster of Oragadam or the micro-engineering cluster near Chengelpet. We could accommodate about 50 alumni techpreneurs in the park who could possibly set micro, small and medium engineering units with an initial capital of Rs. 3 crore (Rs. 30 million) to Rs. 5 crore (Rs. 5 million). The techpreneurs could well generate employment for about 1,500 workers,” Annamalai University Engineering & Technology Alumni Association (AUETAA) President PR Earnarst. “This is a joint development initiative of alumni expat techpreneurs and AUETAA with no upfront expenditure borne by the association towards the buying of land,” he added.

To identify the techpreneurs and promote the idea of shifting their businesses back to India, he said AUETAA has already opened front offices in Singapore, Muscat, Doha and the US to help out homeward-bound engineering entrepreneurs. “The initiative perhaps was kicked off in response to the overwhelming cry of our alumni who remain successful abroad and want to return to India and explore business opportunities for engineering industries here. People who have passed out of the university since 1949 and had gone abroad for opportunities now want to come back owing to family and other comforts of the homeland,” Earnarst said.

The scheme is also open to alumni techpreneurs within the country who want to expand their business with the support of AUETAA. “The spirit of alumni bonhomie is somewhat extraordinary as someone who had passed in 1960s rubs shoulders with someone who had passed out in 2000. They all now want to try out the possibility of functioning under the common roof assisted by AUETAA. Besides expats, domestic entrepreneurs based in other industrial estates want to set shop in the proposed industrial park and that is in a way is encouraging,” he added.

When asked about what type of opportunities await foreign expats in the MSME space, he said the scope is for light engineering and automobile engineering parts. “I myself am an expat techpreneur from Dubai who moved home to set up an engineering SME that supplies auto components to the companies in Oragadam. Other expats with their international exposure could also expedite the possibility of setting up SME export base for light engineering goods,” Earnarst said.

Source: The Financial Express, January 11, 2012