Second master plan for Chennai

With Chennai's population being expected to increase to 9.5 million by 2011, the state government is preparing a second master plan for the development of Chennai Metropolitan Area (CMA).

The new plan will envisage the development of transport corridors, multi-storied buildings across the entire CMA and creation of urbanisable zones.

The government is also planning to introduce road width-based zoning classifications, said Jayanthi, vice-chairperson, Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA).

Talking about the urban planning in Chennai at the plenary session of 'urban competence', at Suminfra, Jayanthi said that the population explosion, coupled with economic growth, would put a severe stress on the city infrastructure.

"Hence, there is a need to promote major urban infrastructure projects in PPP on build operate transfer (BOT) basis."

Jayanthi said that the state government was likely to come out with a unified metropolitan transport authority for Chennai as suggested by the National Transport Policy. The new transport plan would ensure that public transport system would cater to the needs of 70 per cent of the city's commuters.

She said it would require close to Rs 35,000 crore for implementing various schemes of the second master plan. The government is also likely to promote a 62-km outer ring road (ORR) at a cost of Rs 1,000 crore using the BOT and PPP model.

Sameer Vyas, managing director, New Tirupur Area Development Corporation Ltd, said the Tirupur water project brought down the cost of water by almost 50 per cent and in turn reduced the input cost of various industries in Tirupur. Highlighting the virtues of public-private partnership, he said that by floating the Tamil Nadu Water Investment Company Limited (TWICL) as a joint venture with IL&FS, the state government was able to leverage the financial resources of the private sector.

In the case of Tirupur water project too, the government had invested just Rs 50 crore and mobilised the rest of the financial requirements to the tune of Rs 1,000 crore from the private sector. Addressing the participants on 'financing urban infrastructure projects', Luis Mirinda, president and CEO, IDFC Private Equity Company Limited, said, "Though the urban infrastructure is crumbling, it has not yet become a priority for the Central government. It has allocated only Rs 11.5 crore for urban infrastructure in its 10th Plan while the actual requirement is five times more."