Senior Congress leader and Member of Parliament Manish Tewari has urged development of a Mass Rapid Transport Project (MRTS) to connect Chandigarh, Mohali, Panchkula and New Chandigarh as a single metropolitan area. He framed the proposal as more than a transport scheme and said it could unlock the region's economic potential and act as a mercantile multiplier. His intervention came amid concerns about current traffic and future growth in the region.

He questioned what traffic conditions might look like by 2036 and criticised fears that a metro would overwhelm Chandigarh, describing such concerns as unfounded. He added that the real economic growth was occurring on the periphery of Chandigarh rather than within the city and that residents of Chandigarh in the next five years would increasingly commute to adjoining areas for employment. He used social media to press the case and cited technical studies that have examined the project's feasibility.

He argued that if the states of Punjab and Haryana claim Chandigarh as their capital then both those states and the Union Territory of Chandigarh should provide funding to integrate the four cities into a seamless metropolitan area. He urged a joint financial commitment to bring the metro to fruition and noted that RITES (Rail India Technical and Economic Service) has twice assessed the plan as feasible. He described the region as constrained by limited agriculture, minimal heavy industry and a weak services sector owing in part to the closure of the country's western border.

He suggested the metro could transform the quad cities into a research and innovation hub comparable to the Research Triangle of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, positioning the area to capture frontier technologies and related investment that underpin the Fourth Industrial Revolution. He called on the relevant state governments and the Union Territory to collaborate on planning and funding so that the transport investment translates into jobs and sustainable growth. Officials and planners were urged to consider integrated metropolitan governance to realise the benefits.