Maran concerned over land price hike in Chennai

Chennai, Nov 11: Union Minister of Communications and IT Dayanidhi Maran today expressed concern over land prices shooting up in the city and its peripherals, in the wake of IT boom.

"The land prices have risen to unimaginable levels and called for a check in activities of realtors who make a fast buck within a short span of time at the cost of industrial growth in the far-flung areas", he said, inaugurating 'Auto Serve-2006', a three-day conference and exhibition on after-market sales and services of automobiles, their parts and garage equipment, organised by the CII here.

Expressing concern over the rising land prices in Chennai suburbs, he said many start-up industries found that their cost of machinery and equipment was much less when compared to the overheated real-estate prices.

"We are killing the goose before it starts laying eggs", Mr Maran said, referring to the difficulties faced by sunrise industries to set up operations even on the city outskirts as a number of IT firms have pushed up land prices in areas extending to 80 km from the city.

The presence of global auto-majors in Chennai had rubbed off on indigenous manufacturers too, even as the auto-components sector have started to compete with their global counterparts, he added.

UNI