M A Siddique, IAS, Additional Chief Secretary, Finance Department
Government of Tamil Nadu
The State government is working on preparing a legislative proposal that can help eliminate any sort of delays and friction for industries to secure approvals, MA Siddique, Finance Secretary of Tamil Nadu, said here on Tuesday.
“The government is introducing a strict 21-day statutory window [for industrial approvals]. In fact, a legislative proposal is under preparation to ensure that if an application is not addressed within 21 days, it will be deemed granted by default,” Siddique said. “That would be a big decisive step against administrative inertia,” he added.
He was speaking at the CII Tamil Nadu Finance Conclave 2026. Themed ‘Future Ready Finance: Governance, Growth and Innovation’, the conclave brought together CFOs and other top finance executives of companies for deliberation on taxation and financial governance and reforms.
“Industrial ambition that we have must be backed by institutional efficiency,” he stressed to an audience of top finance executives. “Under the vision of Chief Minister for providing clean governance, the government is systematically eliminating bureaucratic friction, corruption and administrative delays,” he assured them.
Additionally, the State is also setting up the Tamil Nadu Investor Promotion Commission, which will be chaired directly by the Chief Secretary. “This empowered commission would oversee all major projects exceeding ₹200 crore or generating 5,000 plus jobs to help resolve inter-departmental bottlenecks.”
Listing out a few key steps taken, the Finance Secretary said that State procurement frameworks have been overhauled by removing restrictive tender clauses and encouraging open market competition. “We are expecting savings of at least more than 10 per cent in the capital expenditure which we incur in procurement of goods and services this year,” he said.
On the taxation front, the Secretary said that Tamil Nadu cannot “tax its way to prosperity” in an arbitrary manner, and believes that if the tax administration is honest, the State will have more honest taxpayers.
The focus instead will be on better tax administration and compliance, he said. Among the various steps are plans to introduce a faceless system across tax departments, including GST administration and the registration department, as well as CMDA and DTCP approval processes.
Laying down some key asks from the industry, Murugavel Janakiraman, Vice-Chairman, CII Tamil Nadu State Council, and Founder of Matrimony.com, urged the new government to prioritise key infrastructure, most importantly, a new airport.
“Definitely we also need a new airport for Chennai; that is one of the long pending things asked from the industry because we are lagging other southern states when it comes to airport,” he said. “I also suggest the State government to look into its own expenses and see whether expenditure can be reduced by leveraging technology such as AI and other tools,” he added.
KM Balaji, Whole Time Director and CFO, Ashok Leyland, and the Chairman of the CII Tamil Nadu Finance Conclave, also addressed the gathering.
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