The Maduravoyal-Sriperumbudur stretch of the Chennai-Bengaluru highway will soon have better lighting, thanks to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) inviting tenders to install 352 street lights and 17 high mast lights.
The tenders for the ₹9.7-crore work will be opened soon, and work will be completed within a couple of months, if election dates are not announced before taking it up.
Already, high mast lights that have a reach of 50 metres each have been installed at two more junctions.
“We are waiting for electrification at these spots. As far as the work to install lights is concerned, the chosen company will have to place orders and meanwhile, they will take up work for the foundation for fixing the posts. Once the equipment is procured, it is only a matter of installation,” said a source in the NHAI.
Road repair
Apart from the electrification, the 23.2-km main carriageway and 9-km service roads are getting strengthened with 90-mm thickness of dense bituminous macadam and bituminous tar surface.
“A total of ₹49 crore has been allocated for this. The lighting contract includes cleaning of medians and sides. The new contractor would have to do the cleaning twice a month instead of once a month at present,” said an engineer associated with the project.
V.G. Sivaramakrishnan of Puliambedu, who takes the road quite frequently, said he was happy with the progress of the work.
However, more needs to be done. “There are locations where the service lane is lower than the main carriageway. The NHAI needs to level these spots so that two-wheelers and smaller vehicles would not find it inconvenient while driving,” he said.
Lakshmi Rajangam of Vanagaram said that medians should have rails or crash barriers to prevent pedestrians and cattle from crossing at any place they please.
“Specific pedestrian crossings must be provided. At present, we don’t know who would jump out from where. The proposed widening must be taken up as soon as possible since the traffic taking the road is enormous,” she added.