The Guindy Industrial Estate (IE) is one hub that has seen several generations of entrepreneurs and has tided floods and cyclones since its inception. It was one of the first industrial estates to be opened in the country along with Okhla Industrial Estate in New Delhi.
Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, inaugurated the Guindy IE’s first phase in 1958, while Lal Bahadur Shastri, the then Minister for Industry, inaugurated the second in 1959, said Tamil Nadu MSME secretary V. Arun Roy.
According to details provided by the MSME Department, R. Venkatraman, Minister in charge of Industries, Transport, Power and Labour; K. Palaniappan, Director of Industries and Commerce, and V.S. Raghavan, Joint Director of Industries and Commerce, were some of the key government officials responsible for the formation of Guindy IE.
During the 1970s, the estate was predominantly engaged in engineering activities and also served as an ancillary unit and subcontractor to many large companies in and around erstwhile Madras, including several Public Sector Units.
Within a decade, in the 80s, Guindy IE embraced the leather garment and apparel units. “These units came into the estate due to the abundant supply of cheap and skilled labour around the estate,” V.K. Girish Pandian, president of the Industrial Estate Manufacturers Association (IEMA), said.
The presence of these units propelled the Tamil Nadu Small Industries Development Corporation Limited to form a garment complex in the estate to meet the demand of the new units. Some of the notable names at the estate during those days were Tata International, Gaitonde Shoes, AVT Shoes and Gupta Garments.
“In the early 2000’s, during the IT boom, the first IT park was built in the estate. Since then, many IT firms have set up their operations and have also expanded,” Mr. Girish said. The Olympia Tech Park, one of the largest IT parks then, which accommodated some of the biggest names in the technology space was built inside the estate.
Today, the estate has a mix of IT parks, precision engineering, heavy engineering , leather garments, banking, financial services and insurance units and many new age start-ups. “We still have many units supplying automobile OEM as tier two and tier three suppliers along with units supplying to aerospace and defence industries,” Girish pointed out.
