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Chennai’s 36 New Parks: Road Strips, Missing Zones, Old Promises

Chennai's ₹44 crore park plan includes airport approaches and under-bridge strips, leaves at least four zones out, and follows a 2022-23 plan for 149 parks with no published completion count.

4 November 2026

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36 New Parks: Where They Are, and Aren't

Greater Chennai Corporation’s plan for 36 parks and 11 play areas at about ₹44 crore was reported as a green boost for the city. The site list tells a more mixed story. Several of the “parks” are strips along arterial roads and under bridges, at least four zones appear in neither list, and an earlier, larger plan from 2022-23 has no published scorecard.

The numbers

₹43.97 cr36 parks and 11 play areas

₹96 lakhaverage cost per park

4 of 15zones missing from both lists

149parks planned in 2022-23

What was reported. The Corporation’s press release No. 631 of 30 October announced 36 parks costing ₹34.45 crore and 11 play areas costing ₹9.52 crore as the first phase of urban greening under the State’s Chief Minister’s Integrated Urban Development Mission (CMIUDM) for 2026 to 2031. DT Next and News Today reported the plan on 31 October. News Today said the works received administrative sanction at the first meeting of a common project sanctioning and monitoring committee.

The money behind it

CMIUDM is a five-year programme with an estimated outlay of ₹1.50 lakh crore across Tamil Nadu’s urban local bodies. The Corporation’s release says ₹2,000 crore of it is earmarked for urban greening, recreation and open spaces. DT Next reported on 31 October that the mission’s guidelines were issued by the Municipal Administration and Water Supply Department, with TUFIDCO as the nodal and fund management agency.

Chennai’s first slice of the greening money is small. ₹43.97 crore is about 2.2% of the ₹2,000 crore statewide pot. It works out to an average of about ₹96 lakh per park (₹34.45 crore across 36) and ₹87 lakh per play area (₹9.52 crore across 11). Neither the release nor the reports give individual site costs.

What counts as a park on this list

The sites DT Next listed include several neighbourhood spaces, such as Kannagi Nagar, Adityaram Nagar, Jawahar Nagar, Nerkundram and Tamil Nadu Housing Board areas. They also include sites of a different kind:

the Kathipara to airport entrance stretch and the airport VIP arrival area;
the Manali Road stretch beneath the “2B” bridge in Tondiarpet;
EVR Periyar Salai and Nelson Manickam Salai in Anna Nagar zone;
Peters Road in Teynampet zone.

Those are arterial roads and road-side or under-bridge spaces. Greening them may cool streets and improve how the approaches look, but they are not places where a family can walk to a park from home. The release puts all 36 under one heading and does not separate neighbourhood parks from corridor landscaping.

It’s often said Chennai is getting 36 new neighbourhood parks.

The record shows the list mixes residential sites with airport approach, arterial road and under-bridge stretches. The Corporation’s release gives no breakdown by type or area.

Who gains: the zone map

The Corporation has 15 zones (see its zonal details page). News Today listed the zones that get the new works.

Zone	New parks	New play areas
1 Tiruvottiyur	No	No
2 Manali	Yes	No
3 Madhavaram	No	Yes
4 Tondiarpet	Yes	Yes
5 Royapuram	No	No
6 Thiru Vi Ka Nagar	No	No
7 Ambattur	Yes	No
8 Anna Nagar	Yes	No
9 Teynampet	Yes	No
10 Kodambakkam	Yes	Yes
11 Valasaravakkam	Unclear	No
12 Alandur	Yes	No
13 Adyar	No	No
14 Perungudi	Yes	No
15 Sholinganallur	Yes	Yes

Source: News Today, 31 October 2026, zone list for parks and play areas; zone numbering from Greater Chennai Corporation. The release text is partly garbled, so zone assignments should be confirmed against the tender notices.

On this list, Tiruvottiyur, Royapuram, Thiru Vi Ka Nagar and Adyar get neither a park nor a play area in phase one. Valasaravakkam is missing from News Today’s list but may be named in the Corporation’s release, whose Tamil text is partly unreadable. Three of the four clear omissions are northern zones. The list of 29 parks published on the Corporation’s site already shows Tiruvottiyur with none and Royapuram with four, and phase one adds to neither. This is a first phase, and later phases may cover these zones. The release does not say.

4 zones

Tiruvottiyur, Royapuram, Thiru Vi Ka Nagar and Adyar are absent from both phase-one lists, according to News Today’s zone list.

The precedent: 149 parks and 51 playfields

This is not the Corporation’s first big park plan. Its Parks department page says 149 parks and 51 playfields were planned under an announcement for 2022-23. The page also records about 113 traffic islands, 104 central medians and 14 vertical gardens developed, and riverside planting along 12.64 km of the Adyar and 11.30 km of the Cooum.

What the page does not say is how many of the 149 parks and 51 playfields have been finished. Nor does the new release say whether any of the 36 parks are carried over from that list. Without a published completion count, residents cannot tell whether phase one adds new green space or funds parks that were already promised.

What this means for you

If you live in Kannagi Nagar, Adityaram Nagar, Jawahar Nagar, Nerkundram or a TNHB layout named in the reports, watch your zone’s tender notices for the site and design.
If your zone is not on the list, ask your councillor or zonal office whether it is in a later CMIUDM phase.
To check whether a 2022-23 park in your ward was finished, an RTI to the Parks department asking for the completion status of the 149 parks is the most direct route.
Once parks open, ask the zonal office who is responsible for maintenance. The release does not say.