CHENNAI: Chennai has become an unmanageable metropolitan city and there is a need to decentralize the it by shifting the administrative functions of the State to any other centrally located city, according to a report.“A lion’s share of economic activities and investment for infrastructure development focuses only on Chennai. This includes 60 per cent of the total outlay of the Tamil Nadu Budget and around 70 per cent of the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board’s spending for 2012- 13 has been assigned for the City,” according to a report of the Institute of Town Planners of India, Tamil Nadu Regional Chapter.Stating that uncontrolled, unabated and unwieldy growth of Chennai has many back lashing effects, the report said land has become a speculative commodity and is beyond the reach of the common man and agricultural land within the Chennai Metropolitan Area has come down to one fourth of the total area between 1975 and 2005.A paradoxical situation has prevailed, wherein there is acute water scarcity during summer and flooding during winter even for a small rain, besides severe disparity in income distribution resulting in vulgar rich and abysmal poverty co-existing, the report added.Continued polarization of population and activities has also perpetuated a skewed urban pattern in the state and made Chennai an unmanageable metropolitan city. Therefore, the situation calls for a deliberate and selective discrimination against the excessive growth of Chennai, the report stated.This includes shifting of government offices, which do not have any functional jurisdiction within the Chennai Metropolitan Authority, out of the city region besides evolving incentives and disincentives to wean away any capital investment for industrial and infrastructure development in and around Chennai.
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