Even as the opposition grows over a greenfield airport near here, the Tamil Nadu government Thursday reiterated its commitment to developing the project.

Delivering the valedictory address at Connect 2010, Deputy Chief Minister M.K. Stalin said: 'The government of Tamil Nadu is taking all out efforts to bring in a greenfield airport, aerospace park, financial city, sports city, outer ring road, elevated highway, metro rail to Chennai so as to make it a world class city, a destination of growth and development.'

The 10th edition of Connect 2010 - a information and communication technology (ICT) event - was jointly organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), and the Tamil Nadu and Central government.

Citing Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.Karunanidhi's efforts in retaining the tax concessions given to IT companies in special economic zones (SEZ) that were sought to be removed under the Direct Tax Code, he urged these software units to speed up their projects.

Citing a study, Stalin said India has emerged as the fastest growing and the fourth largest IT market in Asia Pacific region.

'Recent McKinsey study revealed that it will be many years before China poses a threat to India in IT,' Stalin added.

He said the state has over 1,700 software and IT enabled services units and out of the 29 notified IT special economic zones (SEZ) in Tamil Nadu 19 are already functional generating a direct employment for around 46,000 persons.

Earlier CII's southern region chairman and Infosys Technologies CEO and managing director S. Gopalakrishnan said his company is planning to set up a third centre here.

He said the IT companies have started in a small way outsourcing some of the activities to units located in tier-2 cities.

According to him, 40 percent of the new IT jobs created are in metros and entrepreneurship will be the primary driver for growth of tier-2 cities.