CHENNAI: Super Chennai, a citizen-led initiative, has released an audit of the city’s infrastructure pipeline, urging political consensus to sustain projects worth Rs 90,000 crore as Tamil Nadu approaches assembly election.
The report, titled ‘Transformation of Chennai - What’s been done & What it needs’, maps major projects across metro rail, expressways, water security and aviation, classifying them as completed, under way or proposed.
It highlights risks to continuity in several flagship schemes, including the Maduravoyal double-decker expressway, the Parandur greenfield airport, Metro Phase II and the Perur desalination plant, all at varying stages of execution.
Framing infrastructure as a non-partisan priority, the group has called on candidates to commit to honouring existing contracts and funding arrangements with multilateral lenders such as the Asian Development Bank, Japan International Cooperation Agency and World Bank. It also flagged water security and urban mobility integration as critical gaps, alongside basic governance issues such as parking enforcement and footpath maintenance.
Ranjeeth Rathod, managing director of Super Chennai, said the city’s competitive advantages — lower congestion and improving water systems — are closely tied to ongoing investments, warning that disruptions could undermine growth.
With an estimated GDP of over $100bn and a rapidly expanding global capability centre base, Chennai’s next phase of development, the report argues, will depend on execution discipline as much as new project announcements.