The long-time dream of the Aravakurichi region to have a Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation bus depot is becoming a reality. The depot under construction at Aravakurichi at a cost of Rs. 99.50 lakh is all set to be inaugurated in December.
Even from the days Aravakurichi and Karur were part of the Tiruchi district, people in the region have been demanding an STC bus depot at Aravakurichi since the town lay on the crucial link connecting Madurai and the Deep South with Erode and Salem regions extending to Bangalore and beyond.
Besides Aravakurichi region people, in particular the traders and businesspersons belonging to Pallappatti, have been carrying on trading activities throughout India for several decades now and so had been demanding proper road connectivity and support facilities in the region. One among them, good road connectivity, came about when the National Highways Authority of India built the four-lane roads connecting Kanyakumari/Tuticorin with Bangalore and Chennai a few years ago benefiting Aravakurichi-Pallappatti belt immensely.
Now, the other aspect of better road connectivity, establishment of a TNSTC bus depot, is all set to be achieved with the civil work on the depot progressing expeditiously at the site that was bought more than 30 years ago. During the late M.G. Ramachandran’s regime a 2.5-acre plot on the Aravakurichi-Pallappatti Road for establishing the depot was bought but nothing moved forward because of negligence of the demand by successive governments.
The issue was kept simmering by rival contestants in Assembly elections with all parties promising to pursue the matter but not all delivering on the issue. Only a barbed wire fence around the site reminded the passersby of the depot plan.
Only during the present regime, the demand was dusted, drawn from cold storage, revised and given proper shape before the nod was given by the Chief Minister Jayalalithaa for building a depot at a cost of Rs. 99.5 lakh.
