Migration to Chennai follows industrial growth, but quality of life?

The idea of a special economic zone is perhaps more than 100 years old in the region. The East India Company was the first to come up with a plan to create an enclave that offered a 30-year tax exemption for those who settled near Fort St George and traded with them. Today, the state offers similar benefits inside SEZs — tax breaks, quick clearance of paperwork, infrastructure facilities, with the idea of attracting both investors and
working populations. Chennai’s demographics have reflected the fact that people always move where the work is.

“Till 1975, people migrated from the other southern states to Chennai primarily in search of work in mineral-based industries,” says DLF executive vice-president K K Raman. But with the emergence of the knowledge sector post 1991, a number of large players in the telecom, software and banking sectors have set up offices here.

Although the 2001 census put the city’s population at 42.16 lakh, the agglomeration that has developed around Chennai is estimated to be nearly twice that. Roughly 25% of the country’s 18 lakh IT workforce is located in Chennai and the city earns about Rs 36,000 crore annually through software exports. “Of late, north Indians have started moving to Chennai for core industrial jobs, especially in the auto sector,” says Raman.

The growth of Chennai’s population has been linked to the development of its outlying areas. In the book ‘Madras – The Land, People and Their Governance’, Dr C Chandramouli says emergence of satellite towns is one of the main reasons for population growth, with people moving from the centre of the city to the periphery.

Settlements have mirrored industrial development — between 1971 and 1981, the highest population growth was in Ambattur, Madhavaram, Meenambakkam and Poonamallee, where manufacturing industries were coming up. By 2001, population had doubled in Maduravoyal, Pallikaranai, Okkiyam Thoraipakkam and Neelankarai, south and west of the city, close to the IT and GST corridors and Sriperumbudur.

Chennai’s education system provides a steady stream of skilled labour as well as attracts migrants who want good schools for their children. “This will add to the working population,” says Ramesh Nair, MD, Jones Lang LaSalle Meghraj, a realty consultant.

This will squeeze the city’s resources further. “There’s no housing or schools in the industrial hubs,” says B Santhanam, MD, Saint Gobain. “People have no choice but to live in Chennai and commute, adding to the pressure on resources,” he says. “Social infrastructure has not kept up with industrial growth.”

Planners say there should be an effort to address the lack of housing and road space. “New colonies like Anna Nagar and Ashok Nagar were created to cater to a growing middle-class workforce,” says AN Sachithanandan, expresident, Institute of Town Planners of India. Since there was land, the colonies came up with well-laid out roads and other amenities. “But the land value was so high only top executives could afford it,” he says.

In the next 10 years, Chennai’s population is expected to touch 10 million, making it a mega city. Chennai Corporation, with an area of 176 sq km, will accommodate 59 lakh people while the rest of the metropolitan area of 1,013 sq km will have 66 lakh by 2026. Planners have begun to reclassify agricultural land around the city as residential zones in a bid to disperse the population, but large investments are still needed to boost educational, healthcare, recreation and civic amenities.

“The government has the vision to build industrial parks, but more is needed — you need to encourage people to live where the work is, and to do that you need schools, hospitals, affordable housing, mass transportation systems,” says Kumar Subramaniam, MD, Sanmina SCA, in Oragadam.



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