Tamil Nadu plans to woo Rs 1 lakh crore to create 100 townships
CHENNAI: The State Planning Commission has submitted the draft of Tamil Nadu Integrated Townships Development Policy to the housing department, which would decide on it after discussions with stakeholders, according to official sources. The policy is being formulated to woo Rupees one lakh crore in new integrated townships and generate employment opportunities to not less than 10 lakh people.
Sources said Tamil Nadu aims to create 100 integrated townships in various urban clusters which are environmentally sustainable. The idea is also to improve the rank of Chennai (193) and Coimbatore (174) from current positions to make them one of the top 100 best cities in the world in terms of quality of living.
Apart from Chennai, there are 21 major urban agglomerates governed by municipal corporations in Tamil Nadu. Cities namely Coimbatore, Madurai, Hosur, Tirunelveli, Tuticorin, Tiruppur have witnessed rapid growth in terms of population. Sources said that integrated townships require large scale investments which cannot be met only by the public sector.
Tamil Nadu Housing Board (TNHB) will play a key role in developing the townships on private-public partnership basis. Under this approach, the required land will be provided through TNHB. The private developer can also procure the lands privately while the government through TNHB will provide adjacent government lands for the sake of contiguity. In this mode, the selection of private partners will be done through a transparent process, sources said.
The promotion of development of integrated townships is to check unplanned urbanization and transform cities in Tamil Nadu as world-class cities.
“Private sector has inherent competition, professionalism, dynamism, efficiency and capacity to mobilize financial resources. With the current policy of economic liberalisation and stress on privatisation, the government has to increasingly resume the role of a catalyst and facilitator in the housing sector rather than discharging the traditional role of being a provider. Therefore, there is an urgent need for Integrated Township Policy,” sources added.