Tired of wading through thick traffic on the Chennai-Tirupati High (CTH) Road between Padi and Thiruninravur every day, residents have urged the government to expedite the road widening project.
Former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, in April 2013, had announced that the road would be widened into six lane. The State government had also allocated ₹168 crore for the land acquisition after the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) dropped the proposal to widen the 22 km stretch.
In December 2013, the highways department took up work to widen the stretch from end-to-end, meaning wherever land was available, at a cost of ₹98 crore. However, the present four lanes hardly ease the traffic on the stretch where heavy vehicles ply in large numbers.
Umar Farook, whose office is located inside the Ambattur Industrial Estate, said that a few places were really narrow that it slowed down traffic. “I have to drive for about 7 km to reach my office. It should just take me 10 to 12 minutes, but it takes nearly 35 minutes. The road is not wide enough to handle heavy traffic,” he said.
Plea to clear encroachments
Besides the increasing traffic, frequent accidents also raised concern. Ambattur resident T. Gunaseelan said that accidents had become common place on the road. “The median was built without clearing the encroachments. In places such as Mannurpet and T.I. Cycle Road area, encroachments that we removed have been reconstructed. The district administration and the departments concerned must take steps to remove the encroachments,” he added.
Sources in the State Highways Department said that the land plan schedule for the widening, where owners of parcels of land for acquisition are identified, is yet to be completed. “The Revenue Department has to verify each and every piece of land. Verification has been completed for 10 revenue villages. We need a special revenue unit to speed up the work and have requested for one,” said an official.
