Stressing that southern states should act as a “single, integrated economic region”, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C Joseph Vijay on Thursday pushed for the implementation of the proposed extension of the metro network from Bommasandra in Bengaluru to Hosur in Tamil Nadu.
Addressing the 31st meeting of the Southern Zonal Council in this coastal town near Chennai, Vijay said the extension of the metro network would create one of south India's first inter-State metro links and serve as model of what cooperative infrastructure across state borders can achieve.
Vijay’s statement assumes significance in the wake of Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) rejecting the proposed link as not feasible. The BMRCL is now mulling over extending the Yellow Line from Bommasandra, the current last station, to Attibele, the last major Bengaluru suburb towards Tamil Nadu.
A detailed project report (DPR) funded by the Tamil Nadu government with approval from the Karnataka government and the Centre proposed a 23-km corridor linking Bengaluru and Hosur. The DPR proposed 12 stations on the corridor — 12 km in Karnataka, while the remaining 11 km in Tamil Nadu. The metro corridor’s length was extended by 2.5 km on the Tamil Nadu side, with the last station being planned on the outskirts of the industrial town of Hosur.
In his speech, Vijay said the project would connect Bengaluru's Electronics City corridor with the fast-growing industrial hub of Hosur and knitting together the workforce and economies of the two States.
“I welcome this project as a model of what cooperative infrastructure across State borders can achieve, and I urge that it be carried forward expeditiously with the support of the Union and both State governments. Let it be the first of many such connections across the South,” he added.
The Tamil Nadu government believes the metro extension would not just foster growth in the industrial town of Hosur but also provide seamless connectivity between the two States. The government is also planning to build an airport in Berigai-Bagalur in Krishnagiri district for Hosur, which houses about 500 large industries and 3,000 MSMEs.
The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister also said the greatest opportunity before southern States is to think and act as a single, integrated economic region by realising the fact the their industrial strengths do not end at State borders.
Various manufacturing and service sectors in this region already form interconnected ecosystems across the States, Vijay said, adding that the region can build globally competitive value chains that are far stronger than the sum of their individual parts by strengthening the linkages.
The Chief Minister also proposed common economic and logistics clusters across the southern States, comprising integrated manufacturing zones, shared multimodal logistics parks, and seamless freight and industrial corridors that link production centres to ports within the region and to global markets.
“These initiatives would lower the cost of doing business, sharpen our export competitiveness, make the South a far more attractive destination for foreign investment, and spread industry and opportunity into our smaller towns, driving genuinely balanced regional growth,” Vijay added.
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