Litigations on minor patches behind missing links of Vandalur-Minjur road

The project was undertaken by Tamil Nadu State Road Development Company (TNRDC). Officials said, out of 62.5 km, they have completed laying the road for 56 km and needed to finish only 6.5 km. They raised the hopes that all dots will be connected by the year end.  

Sources said that the state government, considering the heavy traffic in and around the city, planned to construct ORR in 2010 from Vandalur to Minjur in two phases at the total cost of Rs 2,156 crores. works started in August, 2010 and the first phase was successfully completed in 2014 and it was open to the public by the late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa. 

Since there was an issue near Vandalur, the late CM inaugurated the stretch starting from Mannivakkam to Nemilicherry. A senior supervisor of TNRDC told DTNext “it is a fact that we faced hindrance for many years. In the first phase, we took up construction of 30 km stretch from Vandalur to Nemilicherry. 

However, we faced a dispute in connecting a mere 0.5 km, as there is a litigation in the court over land acquisition.” He added that in the second phase, they undertook work on 32 km stretch from Nemilicherry to Minjur and however, they could not proceed on the project as expected, as residents from Prakash Nagar and Lakshmi Nagar filed a litigation demanding alternative plots, as their houses needed to be demolished. 

“In this stretch, we have to lay roads only for 6-km, as we completed construction of 26 km stretch. If the works are further delayed, it will benefit contractors, who will demand more money,” the supervisor added. “If the project was completed, the ORR would link National Highways like GST, Bengaluru NH, Chennai Tiruppathi Highways (CTH) and Kolkata NH. None of the heavy vehicles will enter the city roads and therefore the traffic congestions and bottlenecks would not be there inside the city,” claimed another official.