Tenders are to be floated soon to appoint consultants for preparing a detailed project report for the proposed 55-km-long elevated corridor from Taramani to Mamallapuram on Rajiv Gandhi Salai.
The State government had recently sanctioned Rs. 5 crore towards the appointment of a consultant to prepare the detailed project report. Sources in the Tamil Nadu Road Development Company, which maintains Rajiv Gandhi Salai, popularly known as OMR, said the consultant will have a year to complete the work.
An official said the consultant will also have to make provisions for a public transportation system like metro rail or mono rail. The first phase of the corridor will begin from near Thiruvanmiyur junction and end at Siruseri. Phase-II will take off from Siruseri and end at Poonjeri near Mamallapuram.
The consultant should also study how many lanes the elevated corridor should have based on traffic requirements. With over 1.5 lakh persons employed in IT companies along the road, the IT corridor is used by over a lakh vehicles a day, including 6,000 IT company buses.
A traffic expert said the consultant would have to integrate metro or mono rail as a double-decker facility. “But an underground metro rail line would be more suitable as the IT corridor does not have sewer lines in the middle of the road, like on other roads. It can be connected with the Velachery MRTS station, which will eventually be integrated into the metro rail system,” he said.
Meanwhile, representatives of the IT industry said the traffic situation on the road had only worsened in the last five years. “The traffic on this road is unimaginable now. The only thing that has happened is a traffic change at the Sholinganallur junction,” he said.
