GST Road set to be Chennai’s SEZ corridor

Highway Now Offers A Fair Mix Of IT & Manufacturing; Has Become A Hub For Property Developers

D Govardan CHENNAI

    AS
THE arterial highway connecting Tamil Nadu’s capital Chennai to the
southern regions of the state, the Grand Southern Trunk Road — or GST
Road as it is popularly known — was a silent witness to zipping buses
and trucks, carrying loads of people and goods for years.
    While
Standard Motors, located on the southern outskirts of the city, had
long stopped rolling out automobiles, the Madras Export Processing Zone
(MEPZ), tucked a few km into the city on the stretch, was less
glamorous to attract attention. In the mid-tolate 90s, when Ford and
Visteon, along with a few
auto component units set up base on the stretch, GST Road figured on
the global automobile map, along with Sriperumbudur, which attracted
the larger investment from Korean major Hyundai Motor.
    Today, there is a whole lot of new meaning for GST Road.
    With
four SEZs already approved and room for at least a couple more, it may
soon turn out to be Chennai’s ‘SEZ Corridor’. Thanks to Infosys, which
is setting up its largest development centre in Mahindra SEZ, GST Road now offers a fair mix of IT and manufacturing and has become a hub for property developers.
    “GST
Road offers unparalleled accessibility and the best transportation
infrastructure in Chennai, in terms of connectivity as it is connected
by road, rail and air,” says
Mr Ramesh Nair, local director, Jones Lang Lasalle Meghraj, which has
bagged the marketing rights for the Shriram Gateway SEZ.
    “GST
Road is also in close proximity to thickly populated middle-income
catchment zones like Tambaram, Chromepet and Pallavaram, besides
Perungalathur, making it attractive to IT and BPO companies,” he added.

    Besides MEPZ, which houses several export units and is also
offering space for IT Parks to come up, and Mahindra Global City SEZ,
construction work has begun on Shriram
Gateway and L&T Arun Excello SEZs on the stretch. In addition,
India Land, which is building a large IT Park at Ambattur, is planning
a mixed-use SEZ on GST Road.
    “Unlike OMR and Sriperumbudur stretches, GST Road is the only place that
has established infrastructure already in place. With a slew of SEZ
projects underway, the stretch is fast developing into a kind of SEZ
Corridor because of the availability of large tracts of land,” said Mr
Rajesh Babu of leading property consultants, RECS Group.
    Sensing
the emerging potential, leading property developers L&T Arun
Excello launched ‘Estancia’, a large residential township, adjacent to
their SEZ project. Akshaya Homes, which was an early bird on the OMR,
has already moved into GST Road and launched a 520-unit residential
township, Metropolis. Hallmark Constructions too has just about
launched its 2,000 unit residential project on the GST Road.
    “Besides
established infrastructure, rail connectivity, which runs almost
parallel to the road, is the biggest advantage for GST Road. Several
established educational institutions are well entrenched on the
stretch,” industry sources said. “Unlike OMR, which is set to house
just a couple of hotels, there are over half a dozen hotels already
there or being planned,” they added.
    REAL ATTRACTION

•
Four SEZs have been approved on the stretch. With Infosys setting up
its largest development centre in Mahindra SEZ, GST Road offers a fair
mix of IT and manufacturing companies

• Being in close
proximity to thickly populated middle-income catchment zones like
Tambaram, Chromepet & Pallavaram, it attracts IT and BPO companies

•
Sensing the emerging potential, leading property developers like
L&T Arun Excello have launched large residential township, adjacent
to the SEZ projects

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