Chennai, May 7 (IANS): Innovative measures are needed to correct Tamil Nadu's financial position, said state's Finance Minister Palanivel Thiagarajan.

Speaking to a television channel soon after being sworn in as the Finance Minister, Thiagarajan said the state government's finance went bad during the past seven years.

Thiagarajan said the standard methods will not be able to bring back the state finances to comfortable levels and it needs some innovative measures.

The state's debt is about Rs 5 trillion.

Hailing from a political family Thiagarajan did his schooling at the Lawrence School, Lovedale and graduated from National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli (formerly Regional Engineeringn College).

Thiagarajan later got a master's degree in Operations Research and a doctorate. He had also finished MBA in Financial Management at MIT Sloan School of Management.

He had worked with Lehman Brothers and then with Standard Chartered Bank, Singapore.

Thiagarajan had earlier said the tax to gross state domestic product ratio had come down to less than 10 per cent.