 "Sri City invites housing projects")
After achieving critical mass in terms of number of factories and people employed in them, Sri City, an integrated business park spread across 7,000 acres in SEZ and domestic tariff area , is now focusing on social infrastructure led by residential development with an estimated potential of 50,000 housing units.
"We will be roping in developers to construct houses with sizes starting from single bed room to four-bedrooms as we are looking at providing walk to work environment within Sri City for all categories of employees. We are also planning to bring more number of educational institutions, skill development centers among other social infrastructure to provide a complete ecosystem in the business park," Sri City managing director Ravindra Sannareddy told Business Standard on Friday.
Located 55 km north of Chennai on National Highway 5 in the state of Andhra Pradesh, Sri City is already home to 142 companies. The manufacturing facilities of 90-odd companies are already in operation providing employment to about 25,000 people while the rest of the companies are at various stages of building their plants here.
About 100 foreign companies from 26 different countries have established their operations in this private industrial park. This list includes companies from diverse sectors such as Japanese vehicle manufacturer ISUZU, American chocolate manufacturer Mondelez, French company Alstom, which is building coaches at Sri City for Chennai Metro, Italian steel plant equipment manufacturer Danieli, Taiwanese mobile phone manufacturer Foxconn among several others.
Close proximity to Chennai, being closer to port facilities in both the states of AP and Tamil Nadu, national highway facility, quality infrastructure and services being offered by the industrial park management were considered as some of the important factors that contributed to the success of this industrial park.
"We have recently completed the first batch of 100 houses. Currently we are entering tie-ups with various developers to start different housing projects for different categories of people working here, starting from workers to the level of top executives," Sannareddy said.
In addition to the existing International Institute of Information Technology(IIIT), Sri City will also have a number of other educational institutions and skill development facilities required by the future residents along with the expansion of housing facilities over a period of time, according to him. There was a potential for 50,000 houses considering the future growth in working population within Sri City, Sannareddy said.