CHENNAI: The Centre has accorded sanction for creation of a footwear park and a footwear component park in Tamil Nadu.

The facilities would be established at Irungattukottai, about 35 km from Chennai.

The chairman of the Council of Leather Exports, M. Rafeeque Ahmed, and its executive director, K. Elangovan, announced this at the curtain raiser press conference for the India International Leather Fair (IILF-2006) here on Monday.

The council was the implementing agency for the component park. Apart from offering 21 plots to companies seeking to set up units, the common facilities at the park, near the Hyundai car factory, would include a design centre, testing laboratories and a warehouse.

Mr. Ahmed said the council had approached international laboratories for setting up the testing facilities. This was necessitated as many of the buyers getting the leather exported from India tested at internationally renowned laboratories.

The footwear park, being promoted by the State Industries Promotion Corporation Limited (SICPOT), would come up on 105 acres adjacent to the component park. A meeting was to be chaired shortly by the Chief Secretary to study the plea of the leather industry seeking a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) status for the footwear park. While the footwear park would have an assistance of Rs.20 crore, the component park would have a grant of over Rs.10 crore.

Mr. Elangovan said the two facilities were part of the initiatives to strengthen infrastructure to help the leather industry expand the manufacturing capacity.

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