Chennai Akkarai from Tiruvamiyur Work is progressing rapidly to convert a 10-km stretch into a six-lane road.
For more than 15 years, the works have been stalled due to problems in land acquisition. The people of the area are asking when these works will be completed.
Considering the growth of Chennai, road widening works, bridges and flyovers are being constructed. IT related companies are mostly located along Rajiv Gandhi Road, East Coast Road and Old Mahabalipuram Road. In this situation, the east coast is the main road to reach districts like Pondicherry, Cuddalore, Chidambaram, Nagapattinam. The number of vehicles plying on this road is also increasing.
To increase the use of this road, it was converted into a four-lane road from a village road. It was planned in 2006 to convert it into a six-lane road. But due to problems in land acquisition, the work has not been completed till now. When the Kataragkara road expansion project was started in 2006, the cost of the project was 159 crores. Now it has increased by 85 percent to 1100 crores.
356 crore in 2012, 756 crore in 2019 and 940 crore in 2023. It was estimated that the cost of land acquisition per kilometer would be Rs 106 crore. In this case by the year 2025 Akkarai from Thiruvanmiyur The State Highways Department plans to complete the work of widening the six-lane highway.
The 10.5 km stretch from Thiruvanmiyur to Akkarai will be converted into a six-lane highway. For this purpose, several meetings were held to ask the opinion of the land owners, but the money was paid to the owners of the land after calculating by the village natham purampokku and patta holders. Although land was acquired in areas like Kottivakkam and Palavakkam, land in Thiruvanmiyur remained untaken.
In this case, the land owners in Thiruvanmiyur area are being demolished and handed over the buildings needed for expansion as money is being given to them. Similarly, in other areas like Kottivakkam, Palavakkam, Neelangarai, Eenchambakkam and Akkarai, the land acquisition works are going on rapidly on both sides of the road.
Even though it is a four-lane road from Thiruvanmiyur to Choshinganallur, there is heavy traffic in the mornings and evenings when you can go to work. Similarly, during the festive season, when the number of people going to districts like Nagai, Cuddalore, Chidambaram increases, there is a situation of traffic congestion for several hours. Considering all these, the land acquisition work is planned to be completed quickly without further delay. Residents and passers-by say that the speedy completion of these widening works will also enable hassle-free commuting.
Apart from these works, the National Highways Department is also working on the 4-lane road from Mamalallapuram to Kanyakumari at an estimated cost of Rs 24,000 crore. When this road widening work is completed, it will be possible to make fast travel from Chennai to Kanyakumari.
