 
The Tamil Nadu government Thursday signed a memorandum of understanding with Tata Steel for a Rs.25 billion titanium dioxide plant in Tirunelveli district.
The plant, to come up in southern Tirunelveli, will have a production capacity of 100,000 tonnes of titanium dioxide, an official release here said.
It will provide jobs to 1,000 people and indirectly employ another 3,000.
It will also provide livelihood, ‘through the agricultural science and technology based rehabilitation of mined lands to grow palm trees’, to another 10,000 people in the district, the Tatas said.
Titanium processing is a water intensive method and the Tatas have promised to set up a desalination plant and co-generate power as part of the project.
Faced with protests over land acquisition for their projects elsewhere in the country, the Tatas promised to give priority in employment to people who gave land in Tirunelveli for titanium mining and the plant.
Tata Sons chairperson Ratan Tata came down to meet Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi. Both were present at the MoU signing ceremony.
