Capital improvement on cards with infrastructure projects

Chennai: The Chennai Metropolitan Area would be expanded to 8,878 square kms by including areas from neighbouring districts to ensure equitable growth and integrated urbanisation.

The whole of Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur districts besides Arakkonam taluk in Vellore would be included in Chennai Metropolitan Area with a view to streamline development in areas around Chennai which are witnessing rapid urbanisaiton. At present, the CMA area comprises 1,189 sq km comprising Chennai district and parts of Thiruvallur and Kancheepuram districts.

Announcing this in the Assembly, Housing and Urban Development Minister, Udumalai K. Radhakrishnan said the move would help decongest Chennai city. A ‘Strategic Regional Plan’ would be prepared for the region focusing on aspects like transport, basic infrastructure, guarding fertile farmlands and environment protection. To ensure this, necessary changes would be made to the administrative set-up of Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority, he added.

The Tamil Nadu Housing Board (TNHB) will embark on a massive project to construct 2,284 houses in Chennai and other parts of TN at a cost of Rs. 265.37 crore.

Winding up the debate on the demand for grants to his department in the Assembly on Monday, the Minister said this project has been taken up keeping in mind the increasing need for housing for the people. The residential units would come up at Tiruvallur, Kancheepuram, Vellore, Coimbatore, Nilgiris, Salem, Namakkal, Krishnagiri, Erode, Tiruppur, Madurai, Karur, Tirunelveli, Sivaganga in addition to Chennai.

Under the housing scheme for government officials about 248 residential units would be constructed at Ayyapakkam near Ambattur an estimated cost of Rs 122.50 crore. The Minister also announced that about Rs 100 crore loan would be extended to the Primary Co-Operative Housing Societies through the Tamil Nadu Co-Operative Housing Federation Ltd.

A new region under deputy director would be created for Tirupur and Erode districts at Tiruppur and that a new bus stand would be built at Mamallapuram for Rs 10 crore.

The Minister also announced that a detailed project rep ort on the expansion of foot-over-bridge from Egmore railway station to Poonamallee highroad and VOC Nagar railway station to IOC bus stand has been prepared. A "redevelopment plan" would be readied for improving George Town, Triplicane and Purasawalkam areas and also plans to evolve area based fire safety management would be evolved.

Visual Tamil thesaurus, e-learning portal
The Tamil Virtual Academy will soon design a visual thesaurus for Tamil, e-learning portal besides take up digitisation of nationalised books. About 178 nationalised books have been converted into text format in the first phase and editing and quality checking are under progress at present.