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The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on Tuesday presented the proposal to extend the Chennai Metropolitan Region by connecting points along the Marakanam, Arakkonam and Pulicat regions with Chennai with high-speed corridors. The other locations recommended to be part of this ‘hub and spoke’ model of development were Kanchipuram, Madurantakam, Tiruvallur, Sriperumbudur and Cheyyur.

Some 800 villages fall under the proposed area. Representatives of the CII said that the region would be an interaction of the urban and rural with hubs having such infrastructure as markets or rural BPOs for the villages. Marakanam, Arakonam and Pulicat should be connected by 200 km corridor. Development would exploit underutilised dry land and would attract new investment and provide jobs, they said. It would also help decongest the city of Chennai.

Questions raised about the proposal included the environmental impact of such development, the impact of rapid urbanisation of rural spaces, and the urban sprawl that it could generate.

TR Srinivasan, Vice Chairman, Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA), said that the government is considering the extension of the Chennai Metropolitan Area to cover some portions of the proposed corridors. The other options that it is considering include categorisation of specific nodes like Sriperumbudur, Gummidipoondi, OMR and GST, for planning, or declare the areas around CMA which could include a few thousand square kilometres as State Capital Region. A committee has been constituted under Information Minister Parithi Illamvazhuthi to see what this development could be.

Industry and government heads also discussed the issues of governance structures, town planning and sustainable development that the proposal brought up.

Special Initiatives Secretary T.V. Somanathan suggested various governance structures. A super-ordinate statutory body that could possibly be formed by expanding the mandate of CMDA, retain existing multiple agencies with harmonised rules, co-ordinate through consultative mechanisms or allow the government to co-ordinate, possibly by making urban development and municipal administration one department.

Mr. Srinivasan said that the area proposed for development was spread over the two districts of Tiruvallur and Kancheepuram and portions of Villupuram, Thiruvannamalai and Vellore. This area was very large for planning purposes and would be difficult to regulate to prevent haphazard development. While regional planning is important, the area should be manageable and contiguous, he said, suggesting that only portions of Kancheepuram and Thiruvallur be taken up for the proposed development.

Responding to questions, he said that urban sprawl cannot be prevented. It should be controlled and planned for.

Lakshmi Narayanan, Vice Chairman, Cognizant, said that the changing demography of the IT industry was changing the quality of infrastructure the industry required around it. Now that the workforce was maturing past the initial average age of 24 to 26, the workforce had families requiring access to schooling and healthcare. The proposal to ‘cluster’ industries around certain points will fail if such needs are not met, he said.

GRK Reddy, Marg Constructions, said that inclusive growth is the only sustainable form of growth and that it was time for industry to react to and plan the manner of the country’s growth.

Industries Secretary M.F. Farooqui said that plans for land acquisition currently generated a lot of protest, as people have begun to see the impoverishment ‘at the other end of the spectrum of development.’ He said that industry was yet to make inclusiveness a guiding principle, adding that the proposal is likely to generate jobs for outsiders, rather than locals. Ownership of developed land should be to rework to make those selling the land feel like partners in the process of development, he said, suggesting that they be given small residential or commercial plots within the developed area.

Advocate K. Kannan pointed out that there is no statutory basis for rehabilitation and employment. Vikram Kapur, managing director and chief executive officer, TNUDF, said that the Tamil Nadu government had an official policy of providing compensation of up to 150 per cent of guideline value. The policy framework acknowledges existence of leasee and squatter and repays the loss of livelihood he said.

Public-private partnerships were also mentioned by speakers as an option to fund infrastructure development. Mr. Kapur said that a draft policy was being circulated. There has to be balance of risks and responsibilities between the public and private bodies involved for such a policy to succeed, he said.

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