On paper the Coimbatore Corporation has got 11 scheme road proposals to ease traffic congestion in the city.
They have remained in paper for quite sometime.
Sometime ago, the then Mayor S.M. Velusamy decided to move the scheme road proposals from the paper to the ground and announced that in the coming years the corporation would take up one or two scheme roads every year for implementation.
It has been two years since he made the announcement but it is status quo.
The corporation says that the Perur-Thadagam link road, Selvachinthamani Tank link road, Singanallur-Vellalore link road, Masakalipalayam Road widening and other projects are at various stages of implementation.
Though they have not taken off, there has been progress in paper work.
The officials say that very soon the paper work will get over and then there will be progress on the ground.
Even as the corporation says it is taking progress, things on the ground are bad. The link road connecting Sathyamangalam Road with Thudiyalur Road is a case in point. It is not in the list of 11 roads the corporation has taken up on a priority basis.
But it has to be there on the top, says Ward 28 Councillor, S.R. Arjunan.
The bumper-to-bumper traffic round the clock on the stretch between the Thudiyalur Road Junction and the Kalapatty Road Junction on the Sathyamangalam Road makes it imperative for the civic body to take up the road immediately. But there’s a good news.
On the proposed scheme road path, there is road and then a pathway. The corporation has to acquire some stretch of land to lay the scheme road. And, it does not have to acquire the entire stretch because a land owner is willing to gift the land, says the Councillor.
Civic activists say there are many such places where corporation might get the land to be acquired as gift and it must explore those areas and at least start building scheme roads there on a priority basis.
The corporation says that it is seized of the matter and will do the best to build scheme roads but adds that acquiring land is a time-consuming, lengthy process.
