Road infra in suburbs to get a leg up to decongest core city

The aim is to strengthen the infrastructure in the areas in the next five years so as to develop them like hubs outside the city like what Noida and Gurgaon are for Delhi, a senior official told DT Next, pointing out how these satellite cities helped decongest the national capital.

“The State Highways Department, Chennai Metro Rail and the police are working out plans to decongest the western suburbs of Chennai. The Metro Rail works are already progressing, while major arterial roads like Chennai-Tirupati Highway (more popularly known as Madras-Tirupati High Road), East Coast Road and Bengaluru highway will be widened and improved,” the official said. As the first step, State Highway expansion works would be taken up to clear bottlenecks in Ambattur, Avadi, Tiruninravur, Poonamallee, Kottivakkam, Neelankarai and Uthandi, facilitating the free flow of traffic, the senior official said. Official sources from the Highways Department, the major projects in the pipeline are upgrading East Coast Road from Chennai to Kanniyakumari to four-lane and making the road from Chennai to Kanniyakumari via Tiruchy and Madurai from four to six-lane, and widening the road from Chennai Port to Manali via Tiruvottiyur junction to decongest traffic.

“The road widening and improvement works are already progressing in Kancheepuram district, so are the works on bypass in Tiruttani, Illupur and Rasipuram,” said the Highways official, adding that the plan is to increase the total length of roads in Tamil Nadu by five to eight per cent in the next five years. Land acquisition is also under way for 18 bypasses at a cost of Rs 1,035.63 crore, he added.

It may be noted that Chief Minister MK Stalin had written to Union Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari assuring the State government’s support to acquire the required lands to speed up the widening of National Highways in Tamil Nadu.