On the lines of Nokia, Flexitronics and Motorola now Samsung all set to establish their manufacturing facility in Sriperumbudur near Chennai. Samsung today announced its plan to invest Rs 500 crores for manufacturing electronic consumer durables, colour monitors, apart from mobile handsets and base station.
According to official sources, Samsung has applied for 80 acres of land in the area, earmarked for the Electronic Manufacturing Services (EMS) companies and plans to invest Rs 500 crores.
The company is expected to formally sign an agreement with the Government of Tamil Nadu in the next couple of days.
“Samsung will manufacture electronic consumer durables, colour monitors, apart from mobile handsets and base stations,” sources told CyberMedia News.
The move comes barely a month after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as well Union Communications and IT, Dayanidhi Maran indicating that Samsung might set-up its facility at the recent launch of Flextronics facility late last week.
Moreover, Hyunchul Ryu, managing director, Samsung Telecommunications India had said in a statement, during Mobile Asia 2006, that the company would be expanding its capacity to three million by next year.
The Sriperumbudur plant would be Samsung’s second facility in India after the one at Manesar.
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CMDA finally wakes up to the recent Chennai High court order. Several shopping complexes in Chennai have flouted the development control rules leading to a very little parking space and inadequate facilities to handle the crowd it attracts. In a landmark ruling, the court quashed the regularisation of all buildings granted after the cut-off date of February 28, 1999. It said the buildings or floors constructed in violation of development control rules should be demolished in their entirety.
It directed the creation of a monitoring committee of serving and retired officials and urban activists, to cover all buildings, which were more than four floors in height. "Where the construction of the entire building is illegal, the building has to be demolished. Where an extra floor has been put up illegally the same should be demolished. Necessary modifications/demolition must be done for satisfying the norms for fire safety and car parking facilities within the building premises."
The Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority has now issued notices to over 25 leading shopping complexes in the city for violating the building regulation rules by constructing additional floors without proper Planning Permission.
In its notices, the CMDA has said that the constructions in the complexes were in gross violation of Section 49 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971, or in contravention of the planning permission granted under the section.
The CMDA called upon the owners of the premises, which includes several popular malls such as Saravana Stores, The Chennai Silks, Pothys, GRT Jewellery, Saravana Gold House, to restore the constructions as per the planning permission within a month's time, failing which action will be initiated against them as per the Town and Country Planning Act of 1971.
All the shopping complexes were found to have constructed at least upto five unauthorised extra floors and had not built proper parking lots for customers.
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An ambitious plan to develop several integrated townships on the outskirts of Chennai with an investment of Rs 1 lakh crore over the next few years has the city abuzz these days.
This huge volume of investment is likely to change the way the people of Chennai live, as these integrated townships will come up in almost every suburb and bring in a Western model of modern living.
For instance, the city's first integrated township is going to come up in Ambattur, on the outskirts of Chennai. The township, planned on 23 acres of land, will comprise an IT park spread over 2.5 million square feet, a 1.6-million-square-feet mall, a four-screen multiplex and as many as 1,100 apartments.
This township is likely to be completed within the next two to three years.
This will ensure work, home, entertainment and shopping all within the same campus. And that's the model for about 15 similar integrated townships coming up in and around Chennai. Real estate developers say they are targetting widely travelled couples.
"They have lived abroad and have experienced the lifestyles there. So they would want the lifestyles of the West to be brought in here," Manoj Namburu, MD of Alliance Infrastructure, says.
The projects will cover an area of 6,000 and 7,000 acres and along with the lifestyle they will also change the landscape of this city forever.
Real estate developers say the projects will cost nothing less than Rs 1 lakh crore. The largest of these townships will be a 2,500-acre project to be developed by Parsvanath Developers.
Sahara Housing will be developing a 1,000-acre township, ETA-Star will develop 1,200 acres, Hiranandanis 140 acres and Alliance 23 acres.
Experts say all these projects are going to be snapped up in no time. More than 10 lakh techies and their families are expected to come to Chennai in the next few years and with the townships sitting on the outskirts of the city, they will help ease the pressure on Chennai's overstretched infrastructure.
"You'll not only have residential premises. You'll also have things like schools, shopping malls, entertainment parks and some amount of commercial space. So, for a family that lives there, they don't really need to go out of the confines of the township for their day-to-day requirements," N Ananthanarayanan, Associate Director, Trammell Crow Meghraj, pointed out. via [www.ibnlive.com]
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Chennai police gets a make over. Hundred spanking new upgraded cars gifted by Hyundai complete with revolving lights, loudspeakers and soon – digicams.
We like our cops to be fit, young and stylish. But that is not going to happen in a hurry. For now the cops will have to do with a stylish set of wheels.
The Chennai police will now go after lawbreakers in Hyundai Accents. Hundred upgraded Accents have been gifted to the police force by Hyundai. This is expected to reduce the response time of the police from four minutes to less than three minutes.
Chennai Police Sub Inspector S Jyothi says, “It's useful because we can get anywhere quickly. Sub inspectors with driving licenses have been asked to drive now."
And if the cops decide not to enjoy the A/C too much, the diesel engine might give at least double the mileage the old Jeeps used to give.
Seventy-five of these slick Accents will be used for patrolling while 25 will be deployed by the traffic police. So if you are jumping a red light or crossing the speed limit, expect to hear a shrieking siren from an Accent that will make you pull over. As for the wild police chases you're hoping to see live.
Chennai Traffic Police Sub Inspector Ravichandran says, “We hardly do any chasing inside the city. But if we do, then this can go at really high speeds compared to our old jeeps."
Chennaiites are loving the NYPD image – also because the tax payer didn't have to pay a penny for the new cars. But there will always be skeptics.
Also when large mobs are to be rounded up, thrown into the car, and taken to the station, it's going to be a tight squeeze. If not space, what the cars do have now are revolving lights, sirens, loudspeakers and fire extinguishers. And coming soon are mounted digicams.
It's still a novelty to the cops themselves and though they are enjoying every minute of it, they are still getting the hang of it.
Anyway the Chennai police is the only police force in the country to use this kind of car. At lease, now no one will say that criminals are getting more stylish than the police. via [www.ibnlive.com]
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Chennai may soon have a monorail system to ease overcrowding of the existing public transport modes.
The state government has identified the Metropolitan Transport Corporation Limited (MTCL) as the nodal agency for the development of a Monorail Mass Rapid Transit System (MMRTS) for Chennai.
With a population of around eight million, a majority of the people including a million from the outskirts of the city use its buses and local train service, says an NGO report. Chennai also has an elevated metro-rail service in certain areas.
MTCL has invited bids for the project from national and international developers and sought reports to develop and construct and maintain the project.
A pre-bid conference will be held Jan 25 to discuss the project in detail, sources in the transport department said Tuesday.
The monorail line is expected to be 490 km long and would cover the principal transit routes within the city and surrounding areas. About 300 km of line will be taken up for completion in the first phase.
However, no time frame has yet been set for the project's completion.
The monorail is a single-track upraised train service running usually on a beam and is popular in Japan, Malaysia, Australia and the US.via [www.newkerala.com]
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