India's first Multimodal Logistics Park at Mappedu near Chennai, conceptualised 12 years ago, is set to take centre stage as Reliance Industries initiates construction in June, as reported by several sources. In 2022, the bid for the Rs 14.24 billion project on 184.27 acre of land in Tiruvallur district was won by the company, surpassing the Adani Group.

The project aims to enable efficient, cost-effective, and value-added logistics services, including cargo aggregation and disaggregation, distribution, intermodal transfer, sorting, packing, and repacking. However, it faced setbacks initially due to the lack of interest from the private sector concerning connectivity issues.

In 2022, Reliance was awarded the contract by the Centre, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi laying the foundation stone on May 26, 2022. Nevertheless, various issues, such as road access to local villages, caused delays in commencing construction. They mentioned that all these issues have now been resolved, and construction is scheduled to commence in June.

In October 2021, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed among the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation, National Highways Logistics Management Limited, and the Chennai Port Trust.

The park is situated 52 km from the Chennai Port, 80 km from Ennore Port, and 87 km from Kattupalli Port. It is poised to become a pivotal hub for logistics in the southern region, expected to handle approximately 7.17 million tonnes (mt) of cargo over a span of 45 years.

As per a pre-feasibility report, the project will also serve as secondary market clusters in Ranipet, Ambur, Tirupur, and Bengaluru, which host industries like leather, heavy machinery parts, automobiles, cement, sugar, and chemicals.

Additionally, the project is strategically located near automobile and electronics manufacturing clusters on the Sriperumbudur-Oragadam industrial belt and in proximity to the Chennai Peripheral Ring Road.