Ponneri smart city to come up in 25,000 acres of land

Chennai:

The smart city in Ponneri in North Chennai would be developed in an area of 25,000 acres of land in three phases, according to senior representative of Japan International Cooperation Agency Ichiguchi Tomohide.

Talking to Express on the sidelines of Global Investors Meet here on Wednesday, Tomohide said that the Ponneri Smart City project would be implemented in three stages.

In the first and second stage a total of 4,500 acres would be converted into smart city and in the third stage we are targeting an area of 20,000 acres.

He said the master plan is ready for Ponneri smart city. “We have prepared it in the month of July,” he said.

Interestingly, Ponneri in North Chennai is one of the three smart cities in Chennai-Bengaluru Industrial Corridor. The other two nodes or smart cities planned along Chennai-Bangalore Industrial corridor include at Vasant Narasapur at Tumkur in Karnataka and Krishnapatnam near Nellore, in Andhra Pradesh

To a query on the nature of investments in the smart city, Tomohide said that it is too early to comment on it. “The next stage is implementation and it will be dependent on cooperation from the Centre as well as State.

The masterplan would include industrial parks, residential area besides commercial space.

Interestingly, the development of smart city in Ponneri would boost realty investments in North Chennai which was termed as a settlement of blue collar workers.

He also said that Chennai and Tamil Nadu is JICA’s priority region because of Chennai Bangalore Industrial Corridor Framework and potentials of Japanese Investment.

To a query on whether JICA will fund the second phase of Chennai Metro project, Tomohide said that they have yet to get the detailed project report. He also said that JICA has yet to receive any request for funding of extension of the first phase of Chennai Metro Rail project by further 9 km from Washermanpet to Wimco Nagar at Tiruvottiyur.

Interestingly, the priority projects for JICA currently are the 62.3 km Outer Ring Road, 129 km Chennai Peripheral Ring Road and 400 MLD desalination plant.