Top 3 focus areas to revive Chennai’s Image in Global Map
I have been to New York few times and it always enthralled me with its mix of old heritage buildings and its new infrastructure. An interesting comparison between two cities which I hold close to my heart.
Chennai/Madras was always frontrunner in the past when it comes to Metropolitan Infra initiatives in our country. During the last decade, somewhere the city lost its momentum and lagged behind other cities like Hyderabad. Same case on Cosmopolitan and Night life, when compared to Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai, we lag behind on this. This is important when you want to attract Global Talents and investors to Chennai.
Coming back to Top 3 focus areas to revive Chennai, below are top critical ones to work upon:
Airport
Chennai Airport is one of the oldest Airports in India and possess both International and Domestic Terminals. Cities like Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad leap frogged in this area with state of the art Airport.
This Airport had got gradually engulfed into Chennai City limits, the Airport Authority of India just did renovation or a wrapper on top of existing old legacy Airport. We tend to hear frequent incidents where the roof glasses falling every now and then, which creates negative reputation.
Airport is Gateway to a City, the impression it leaves on the first time travelers to the city is a long standing one.
We need to build a brand new Airport for International Terminal having Metro connectivity for seamless Airport transfers from Domestic Terminal(Dubai, Doha and Singapore Airports are the ones to be seen as our inspiration).
SEZs
We have 5 SEZs(operational) in Chennai and most of them are related to IT & ITES. We need to have varied SEZ created for Industries like Pharma, Automobile & Fintech so that the growth will be spread in all these sectors. This will give varied opportunities from different domains and our demography will change.
“It is the part of a wise man to keep himself today for tomorrow, and not venture all his eggs in one basket.” — Don Quixote
Innovation HUB
We need to aspire, Chennai to be Start-Up Capital for our country. Creating Innovation Ecosystem and pioneering the new Business Models to encourage Start-Up ideas.
Tamil Nadu Government can initiate this Innovation Hub and bring Ease of doing business and encourage new Ideas to take wings as Start-Up.
The Government can proceed from creating platform for Venture Capitalists, Government Agencies and Innovators to meet and trigger many Start-Up companies to mushroom in our state.
Above three measures can put Chennai back onto Global Map as City of Opportunities.
With Luv,
VJ