Chennai (PTI): Exhorting entrepreneurs to "innovate for the common man," Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi on Friday said that such efforts would benefit both the companies and the people.

"If the lifestyle of the common man improves, your companies' bottomline will improve automatically," he said at TIECON 2008, an annual entrepreneur awards function.

Citing the example of Tata Motors' new car Nano, he said: "this small car is a big leap of a new idea. It will inspire many others to innovate. After all, if a product becomes cheaper larger number of people would benefit by it". The company will also gain from Nano, he added.

"We(state government) have also proposed to provide assistance to technology innovators or stand alone Research and Development (R&D) units or individuals for innovations capable of industrial application", he said.

The state aimed at creating 20 lakh jobs by 2011, as was announced in the recently launched Industrial Policy, he said.

"As part of this policy, the Government would support setting up of "Centres of Excellence and Innovation" to develop a pool of world-class scientists and technologies in areas of chip and electronic hardware design, leather product and automotive designs," he said.