1. At the outset Member-Secretary welcomed the august gathering. The purpose of the consultation was briefly explained.

2. The Worshipful Mayor in his presidential address stated that the waterways in Chennai City require cleaning up and all the waterways in the city may be brought under the control of one agency. Considering the large scale IT developments in South, sufficient areas may be earmarked for commercial purposes.

3. The Hon’ble Minister for Information and Chairman, CMDA in his inaugural speech stressed that urbanization and economic development are complementary to each other and for economic development urbanization has been a necessity. Population growth cannot be prevented, but what the Government and planning authorities are trying to do is to regulate the developments. The Hon’ble Minister has explained the details about the intention of the Master Plan and its main objectives and stressed that the main objectives may be achieved only through the action plan to be prepared by the implementing agencies concerned, based on the Master Plan. Stating that the Councilors of the Corporation will be knowing more not only about the problems in their division but also in this metropolis, requested them to give their valuable suggestions for development in the metropolitan area. The Councilors were also requested to help the Government in preventing the unauthorized developments since it is one of the major problems in the city. Appreciating the Chennai Corporation in doing the commendable job in solid waste collection and disposal, the Chennai Corporation was requested to improve their performance to achieve good environment.

4. A power point presentation in Tamil explaining the salient features of Draft Master Plan-II was made. After the presentation the Hon’ble Minister and Chairman, CMDA initiated the discussions.

5. The following are the suggestions made:

(a) There is heavy traffic congestion in George Town, Purasawalkam, Kodambakkam, Egmore, Saidapet etc and draft Master Plan –II should address these traffic problems .

(b) Construction of buildings for multilevel parking should be expedited to relieve congestion.

(c) To ease the traffic in the city a road along the banks of Coovum and B canal should be proposed. For container lorry movement a exclusive road along Beach in North Chennai connecting the port should be proposed.

(d) To save energy, in all developments provision of solar energy may be made mandatory.

(e) In the rest of Chennai Metropolitan area, due to spurt in industrial development especially IT industries, there is considerable increase in the population growth. To increase the housing stock and for incremental housing, additional FSI may be permitted.

(f) Relaxation powers upto 25% of norms to the Town Planning standing committee for the buildings approved under delegated powers may be given.

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