Travel

Sholinganallur, Chennai: A Working Guide to the IT Corridor

• By Raintree Team
• 05 September 2026
• 07 min read

The first question a visiting professional should ask about OMR is which part of it they will be working on.

The road runs for kilometres, and a meeting in Taramani is a very different commute from one in Siruseri. For many corporate trips, the deciding node is Sholinganallur, Chennai, the corridor's largest hub, and the answer to where you should stay depends on where you spend your day. This guide works down - from north to south, gives drive times from Alwarpet, and says where each stretch begins and ends, making planning far easier for a corporate traveller.
 

OMR Chennai, the city's IT spine

OMR, or Old Mahabalipuram Road, is now officially Rajiv Gandhi Salai, and you may also hear it called the IT Expressway. It runs for about 45 km, from Madhya Kailash in south Chennai to East Coast Road near Mahabalipuram. Along the way, it passes most of the city's major technology campuses, and the corridor accounts for a large majority of Tamil Nadu's software exports.

The easiest way to picture it is as 2 halves. The northern half, from Madhya Kailash to Sholinganallur, is closer to the city and more built up. The southern half, from Sholinganallur towards Kelambakkam, is where the large campuses sit, and the distances stretch out.

Ascendas IT Park, Chennai, Taramani: The Nearest Campus at Taramani

Ascendas IT Park Chennai in Taramani is the closest major campus to central Chennai. Often described as Chennai's first private IT park, it spans over 2 million sq. ft. of office space across 15 acres. It’s located around 8 km from Alwarpet, about 11 minutes by road.

IIT Madras also sits in the Taramani area, so if you have a meeting at the tech park and an event at the institute, you can comfortably fit both into one day. From here, the offices get denser as you head south.

If it is your first visit to Chennai, Taramani is also a gentle introduction to OMR. You get a feel for the road without committing to the long drives further south.

Sholinganallur, Chennai: Where the Corridor Meets the ECR Link

Sholinganallur sits where the corridor's two halves meet, and it is also a junction where other roads feed in from the city and from the western suburbs. Up to here, it feels like a road with IT parks lined alongside. That makes it the busiest point on OMR, with the largest concentration of offices, and the widest choice of places to eat, shop and find services. Sholinganallur is also where the corridor's traffic gathers, so the same drive can take much longer at the wrong hour.

It is a good place to test the stay decision. If your whole trip is inside one building here, a hotel nearby has genuine appeal. If your trip is more mixed, with a second campus, a client in the city or an early flight, the distance back to a central base is far easier to live with than it looks on a map.

ELCOT SEZ, Sholinganallur: A 377-acre Knowledge Township

Elcot SEZ Sholinganallur is one of the best-known destinations on this part of the road. The state describes it as a knowledge industry township on the IT Corridor. It is a Special Economic Zone campus that houses IT and IT-enabled services operations, so the people you meet here are mostly software, technology and business-process professionals.

Land in the zone has been allotted to companies including Wipro, HCL Technologies, Cognizant, and Sutherland Global Services. Ford's Global Technology and Business Centre opened here in 2019. Visitors here tend to be consultants, auditors, client-side leads, and delivery managers on short trips. If that sounds like you, a convenient base with a reliable early breakfast and a quick check-out usually works better than a long stay in one place.

Navalur, Chennai: Past the Corridor's Exit Plaza

Further down the road is Navalur Chennai. It is a little calmer than Sholinganallur, but it is still very much part of the IT belt, with offices and campuses spreading along both sides of the road. The Tamil Nadu government permanently shut down toll collection there in October 2023, but Navalur remains the unofficial boundary where the denser urban limits of Chennai give way to the outer suburban stretch of the IT Corridor. Navalur is roughly where the commute stops feeling like a quick hop and starts feeling like a proper journey. From here southward, choosing a central base becomes a real trade-off, and you should make it deliberately rather than by default.

Siruseri SIPCOT: the Far End of the Corridor

At the southern end of the main IT stretch is Siruseri SIPCOT. SIPCOT has developed a Cyber City of about 2,000 acres here, right beside the IT corridor, and many IT and ITeS companies have set up operations on the campus.

We will be straightforward about this one. Siruseri is the longest commute from the city’s centre. If you are working at Siruseri every day, that has a real cost in time and energy. That is the situation where a stay near the campus makes the most sense, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise.

Driving the OMR at Peak Hours

The most useful thing to know about the OMR is that its traffic is directional. In the morning, the heavy flow runs south, from the city towards the IT campuses. In the evening, it turns around and runs north, back towards the city. If you are travelling the same way as the crowd, expect a slower journey. If you are going against it, the road is usually much kinder.

Starting from Alwarpet, a central base for many visitors, here is roughly how far each stretch is and how long it takes at midday. At rush hour, add more time.

• International Tech Park, Taramani: Approximately 7 km, about a 20-minute drive
• Sholinganallur: Approximately 17 km, about a 50-minute drive
• ELCOT SEZ: Approximately 19 km, about an hour's drive
• Navalur: Approximately 26 km, about an hour & 10 minutes' drive
• SIPCOT IT Park, Siruseri: Approximately 27 km, about a 1 hour 20 minutes drive

Stay at Raintree, St. Mary's Road, a Central Address for OMR Trips

Here is the honest case. If your trip involves more than one node on the OMR, or meetings in the city as well as on the corridor, a central base like Raintree, St. Mary's Road in Alwarpet is a practical choice. You are not tied to one park's location. We keep this simple. Here is what you can count on:

• A business centre for printing, small meetings and last-minute paperwork
• A 24-hour fitness centre, open whenever your schedule allows
• All-day in-room dining, so a late return from the OMR never means a missed meal
• A 26-hour full stay, booked directly on the website, works for late arrivals and early meetings without paying for a night you barely use.
• Teams on longer projects can also book extended stays.

OMR isn't one address but a chain of campuses, and the drive between them is part of the working day. Before you book a meeting, find out which stretch it's on, add the travel time from where you're staying, and avoid travelling with the rush-hour traffic. Whether your work is in Sholinganallur, Chennai, or further down towards Siruseri, a centrally located stay at Raintree, St. Mary's Road makes the corridor easy to plan around, and each campus becomes a scheduled stop rather than a surprise.