Tamil Nadu Has More Registered Manufacturing Units Than Any Other State, 41,221 in 2024-25, and the Second-Largest Economy at 9.4 Percent of India's GDP

Tamil Nadu has more registered manufacturing units than any other state: 41,221 in 2024-25, which is 15.44 percent of the 2.67 lakh in the country, according to the Ministry of Statistics’ press note of 30 September 2026. The same survey puts it first for manufacturing jobs, with 14.99 percent of the national total, and third for value added, with 10.90 percent. The state took its present territory on 1 November 1956 and its present name on 14 January 1969. Census figures below are from 2011, the latest published, because the 2027 census is under way.

Madras State changed shape in 1956 and name in 1969

The state is older than 1956. The Constitution’s First Schedule describes Madras as the territory of the old Province of Madras, less the areas the Andhra State Act, 1953 gave to Andhra. The States Reorganisation Act, 1956, which took effect on 1 November 1956, then redrew the edges. Section 4 added four taluks of Trivandrum district (Agastheeswaram, Thovala, Kalkulam and Vilavancode) and the Shencottah taluk of Quilon district. The first four became Kanya Kumari district and Shencottah joined Tirunelveli district. Malabar district and Kasaragod taluk went to Kerala, South Kanara and Kollegal taluk went to Mysore, and the Amindivi Islands joined a new Union territory.

A further Andhra Pradesh and Madras (Alteration of Boundaries) Act, 1959 moved parts of the border with effect from 1 April 1960, as the Constitution’s footnotes record. The Madras State (Alteration of Name) Act, 1968 (Act 53 of 1968) then renamed the state Tamil Nadu from 14 January 1969.

One House of 234 members, 39 Lok Sabha seats and 38 districts

Tamil Nadu has a single-chamber legislature, the Legislative Assembly. The Representation of the People Act, 1950 gives it 234 constituencies, 44 reserved for Scheduled Castes and 2 for Scheduled Tribes. In Parliament it has 39 Lok Sabha seats, 7 of them reserved for Scheduled Castes, which is 7.18 percent of the House’s 543 seats, and 18 Rajya Sabha seats under the Fourth Schedule. The Comptroller and Auditor General counts 38 districts and 313 taluks. The Madras High Court has a bench at Madurai, as the Governor’s address of 18 June 2026 noted. Under section 2 of the Tamil Nadu Official Language Act, 1956, which received the Governor’s assent on 19 January 1957, Tamil is the state’s official language.

The state once had a second chamber. The 1950 Act’s Third Schedule listed a 78-member Legislative Council until the Tamil Nadu Legislative Council (Abolition) Act, 1986 ended it from 1 November 1986. Parliament passed another law in 2010, the Tamil Nadu Legislative Council Act, to bring one back, but it needed a presidential order to take effect, and the statement attached to the 2012 repeal bill records that none had been issued. The Law Ministry’s edition of the Constitution still carries Tamil Nadu in a bracket under Article 168 with the note “date to be notified”. The Assembly withdrew its request on 7 June 2011, and a bill to repeal the 2010 Act was introduced in the Rajya Sabha on 4 May 2012. Our guide to which states have two houses lists the states that kept theirs.

At the 2011 census Tamil Nadu had 7.21 crore people, the seventh largest population among the states, on 1,30,060 square kilometres, the 11th largest area, the CAG reports.

A Rs 31 lakh crore economy built on factories

The state’s gross state domestic product (GSDP, the value of goods and services produced in a year) was Rs 31,18,590 crore at current prices in 2024-25, the CAG’s audit report says, up 15.98 percent on the year before. That was 9.43 percent of India’s GDP, the highest share in a decade. The Economic Survey of Maharashtra ranks the states by share of national GDP in 2024-25: Maharashtra 14.0 percent, Tamil Nadu 9.4 and Uttar Pradesh 9.0. The state’s budget for 2026-27 projects GSDP at Rs 40,67,312 crore, and PRS Legislative Research gives per capita GSDP for 2025-26 as Rs 4,55,650.

The Press Information Bureau says electronics became India’s third-largest export category in 2024-25, and that five of the first seven projects approved under the Union government’s Electronics Component Manufacturing Scheme, announced on 27 October 2025, are in Tamil Nadu. By tuput’s addition, they account for Rs 4,271 crore of the Rs 5,532 crore approved.

The CAG puts the 2024-25 fiscal deficit at Rs 1,01,344 crore, 3.25 percent of GSDP, and outstanding public debt at 27.38 percent of GSDP, against a limit of 28.90 percent. PRS says 73 percent of the 2026-27 revenue receipts are the state’s own and 27 percent are central transfers. Tamil Nadu’s share of central taxes was 4.02 out of 100 under the 14th Finance Commission, 4.08 under the 15th and is 4.10 for 2026 to 2031 under the 16th, according to PRS’s summary. The Finance Commission guide explains how the shares are set. The 2026-27 budget sets aside Rs 14,414 crore for Magalir Urimai Thogai, a cash transfer to women, and Rs 710 crore for the Chief Minister’s breakfast scheme, now extended to classes six to eight.

How a Madras case changed the Constitution and set a 69 percent quota

The Constitution’s clause on backward-class quotas followed a Madras case. A government order of 21 November 1947 had provided communal representation in public posts. In State of Madras v. Champakam Dorairajan the Supreme Court upheld the Madras High Court’s ruling that the order violated Article 29(2). The First Amendment added Article 15(4) on 18 June 1951, allowing special provision for socially and educationally backward classes. The Supreme Court’s 2022 judgment records how Madras then raised its quotas in steps: 25 percent for Backward Classes and 15 for Scheduled Castes and Tribes in 1951, 50 percent for Backward Classes from 1980, and 1 percent for Scheduled Tribes from 1990. That made 30 percent for Backward Classes, 20 for Most Backward Classes and Denotified Communities, 18 for Scheduled Castes and 1 for Scheduled Tribes, or 69 percent.

The 50 percent ceiling is the contested part. In 1992 the Supreme Court held in Indra Sawhney that reservations under Article 16(4) should not exceed 50 percent. Tamil Nadu passed Act 45 of 1994, assented to on 19 July 1994, to keep 69 percent, and the Constitution (Seventy-sixth Amendment) Act, 1994, assented to on 31 August 1994, placed it in the Ninth Schedule as Entry 257A. Article 31B says no law placed in the Ninth Schedule is void for conflicting with the fundamental rights in Part III. On 13 July 2010 the Court sent the state to gather data on backward classes without ruling on the Act. A petition against it, Writ Petition 365 of 2012, was still pending on 31 March 2022, when the Court struck down a separate 2021 law giving Vanniakula Kshatriyas 10.5 percent within the Most Backward Classes and said it expressed no view on the 1994 Act.

Two languages in school since 1968

In 1968 the Madras Assembly passed a resolution against the three-language formula for schools, which the Governor’s address of 18 June 2026 quoted, as UNI reported: the formula must be removed and only Tamil and English taught.

The Union’s National Education Policy 2020 says in paragraph 4.13 that the three-language formula will continue with greater flexibility and “no language will be imposed on any State”. The same address said the state opposes that policy and its three-language formula, and that the government will continue its two-language policy. Our account of how states differ on language sets out the school rules in five states.

A Governor’s assent and two Supreme Court rulings

Tamil Nadu’s legislature sent 12 Bills to the Governor between 13 January 2020 and 28 April 2023, and the state filed a petition on 31 October 2023, the Supreme Court recorded. On 13 November 2023 the Governor withheld assent to 10 and reserved two for the President. The Assembly repassed the 10 on 18 November 2023, and on 28 November the Governor reserved them for the President.

On 8 April 2025 a two-judge bench called that reservation erroneous, set aside the President’s later action and used Article 142 to declare the ten Bills assented to on 18 November 2023. It also set time limits of one to three months for Governors. A Constitution Bench answering the President’s reference on 20 November 2025 held that the Governor chooses among three options in Article 200 and that courts cannot set timelines or recognise deemed assent. It said the Court may still order a decision within a reasonable time where inaction is prolonged, unexplained and indefinite. Our guide to what a Governor does covers both rulings.

What comes next

Houselisting, the first phase of Census 2027, ran from 1 April to 30 September 2026, and the population count has a reference date of 1 March 2027, the Press Information Bureau says. The Constitution’s Article 82 says Lok Sabha seats need not be readjusted until figures from the first census after 2026 are published, so Tamil Nadu’s 39 seats stay until then, a debate set out in our piece on how Lok Sabha seats are shared. The 2026-27 budget projects a fiscal deficit of 3 percent of GSDP, Rs 1,21,819 crore, in line with the 16th Finance Commission’s target for 2026 to 2031.