The Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority, which is preparing the third master plan for the city with 2026 as the deadline, is yet to prepare the base map. It has started the visioning exercise and begun to set up a project management unit with World Bank assistance.
The map, which will include information about the various zones, water bodies, roads, residential colonies, commercial establishments and other infrastructure, will help prepare the land-use plan and formulate strategies for the Chennai Metropolitan Area (CMA) area for the next few decades.
Officials say another issue that is to be addressed is the expansion status. While the master plan is being prepared for 1,189 sq km in the CMA, the expanded areas account for a total of 5,000 sq km. “Preparation of the second master plan didn’t include projects and infrastructure for the extended areas which led to haphazard development there. This time, too, if the master plan is drafted without integrating plans for these areas, unplanned development will happen in those areas,” said an official.
“In the second master plan, the CMDA did create the land-use map, but there were several discrepancies that led to issues over the reclassification and others including over land ownership. Now, as the CMDA embarks upon a visioning exercise and will soon start collecting information from other departments on infrastructure such as road networks, railways, metro rail, bus networks and their visions and proposals for the city, doing it without starting the mapping work will lead to confusion,” said a retired CMDA official who didn’t want to be named.
CMDA member secretary Anshul Mishra, attempting to assuage these fears, said that the third master plan was due to come out in 2026 and there was enough time to prepare the maps.
“We will first appoint a senior planner who will be an expert who will hand-hold the officials involved in the entire process. He will also be in charge of the project implementation unit. We are on the right track and we will get images from remote sensing satellites though Isro and get revenue maps from the revenue department,” he said.
Regarding the expanded areas, the CMDA member secretary said that officials would study and prepare plans for these areas too. A government order will soon be announced for this, he said.
The consultants who are yet to be appointed will have to conduct studies based on satellite images, say experts.
If they use low resolution satellite images from other sources and satellites instead of the CMDA map, matching them again with the final base map will cause delay and also discrepancies, they added.
