Tamil Nadu’s GST growth is better than national average: Finance Secy.

Tamil Nadu’s GST growth is better than the national average, Finance Secretary T. Udhayachandran said on Friday.

During an interaction with journalists at the Secretariat after the Budget was presented, he said, “The GST growth of 22% is one of the highest in the country. We are doing extremely well in the GST and IGST settlements. We have made extra efforts in data analytics and tax administration.”

Pointing out that the most critical aspect in the GST is digital economy, he said, “We are looking to focus more on digital services. There are a lot of grey areas. We are getting data from payment aggregators and reviewing them.”

The Finance Secretary said semiconductors were crucial and any country that ventured into this sector was poised for unprecedented prosperity. “We are looking for major investments in semiconductors. When it comes to semiconductors, the spectrum is too large — there are testing facilities, fabrication, assembly. We have picked up a few of these important aspects. And we want to change the landscape of Coimbatore by introducing the semiconductor mission in the Budget,” he said. Mr. Udhayachandran further said that the State would focus on the sunrise sectors to achieve its goal of $1-trillion economy by 2030. “Advanced courses will be introduced to meet industry standards. Ship-building is an emerging area. We will do this at Cuddalore and Thoothukudi. This will create thousands of jobs.”

He added that technical textiles, power looms (“we are going in for modernisation”), and animation, visual effects, gaming, and comics (AVGC) are the sectors that will drive the growth.

“We should focus on high labour-intensive projects,” he added.

The Finance Secretary also stressed the importance of international trade relations. “Growth of any State is dictated by global trends. But we are growing at a higher rate than the national rate,” he said.

Higher education

Stressing that specific importance was given to higher education in this Budget, he said efforts were being made to make Anna University one of the top 10 institutions in the country and the top 150 in the QS World University Rankings.

“We want to do this over a period of five years. Currently it is among the top 20 institutions in India. A budget of ₹500 crore has been allocated for this. There will be contributions from the government and the alumnae network, besides industry contributions,” he said.

Published – March 15, 2025 12:21 am IST