Don't invest in IT, TN minister tells investors

CHENNAI, INDIA: While the Indian IT industry is passing through a bad time owing to the global economic meltdown, Tamil Nadu Electricity Minister Arcot N Veerasamy created a stir on Friday, when he said his state does not need any more investment in IT.

"The IT sector is going through a bad patch due to a global meltdown and hence we don't want investments in that sector any more," he told the NRI investors at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas meet in Chennai.

The minister said that more than 50 per cent of the IT companies on Old Mahabalipuram Road had closed down after the recession in the US.

“Don’t waste your money (in Information Technology),” he said. This statement from Veerasamy comes at a time when Tamil Nadu's software exports had touched a phenomenal Rs 28,000 crore in 2007-08.

Also, his statement contradicted the efforts of the State IT Secretary P W C Davidar to salvage the situation in front of the prospective investors.

Arcot N Veerasamy also suggested that investment in sectors like automobile, steel, cement, leather, textile, paper, cement and even brick industry would be safe, as, according to him, these sectors would not face a slowdown for the next 25 years.

Do you think the minister's statement was bit too 'strong' in this global scenario?