CHENNAI: Hundreds of land parcels across Chennai’s fast-growing suburbs have been caught in a long-pending grid road plan, prompting authorities to consider pausing its enforcement after objections from landowners and developers.
Officials at the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority (CMDA) have placed a proposal before the authority seeking approval not to insist on the Grid of Roads (GoR) alignments while granting planning permissions until a revised and integrated road network is finalised under Chennai’s forthcoming Third Master Plan.
The Grid of Roads initiative was conceived to create a structured road circulation network across the Chennai Metropolitan Area (CMA), particularly in suburban areas outside the jurisdiction of the Greater Chennai Corporation. The framework sought to guide urban expansion by earmarking corridors for new roads and widening existing ones, which developers would have to accommodate while seeking approvals for layouts and buildings.
Initial grid alignments were prepared in-house for villages along the Outer Ring Road corridor, including Mudichur and Palanthandalam, and were approved in 2013. The programme was later expanded, with studies undertaken by the School of Planning and Architecture Vijayawada and the School of Architecture and Planning Anna University. Consultants prepared plans covering 53 villages, which were adopted by CMDA in 2019. The exercise was subsequently expanded to 201 villages across the metropolitan periphery, resulting in 418 road-widening proposals and 439 new road links.
But the plan has run into practical and legal complications. Several proposed corridors were found to pass through approved layouts or existing buildings, triggering objections from landowners and developers.
“Some of the proposed grid roads cut across existing roads and even institutional premises such as schools,” said Mohammed Ali, president of the Chennai chapter of Credai. “The study appears to have been carried out without adequate ground verification.”
Following public feedback, the state government asked CMDA to review the alignments. A committee of senior officials has since examined several proposals, recommending deletion of 15 roads, modification of 23 and retention of seven.
The reassessment has also coincided with parallel planning exercises. The mobility strategy prepared by CUMTA proposes its own set of road widenings and new corridors. At the same time, planning consultant HCP Design Planning and Management Pvt Ltd, engaged to prepare Chennai’s Third Master Plan, has suggested a broader network of arterial roads and missing links across the region.
CMDA sources said they are now working to consolidate these proposals into a single integrated road network plan for the metropolitan region, which will form part of the forthcoming master plan. Until that exercise is completed, plans are on for a pause on enforcing the earlier GoR alignments.