A number of ‘illegal roads’ in Chennai have emerged as a point of contention between councillors and Corporation officials in many neighbourhoods.
With work on roads gaining momentum in the city, many councillors have started making requests for road development in their wards. The Corporation has proposed to develop as many as 18,000 interior roads this year. Last week, the Corporation council passed a resolution for the development of 10,000 roads.
Assistant engineers have been turning down demands for road work in many localities after finding such stretches ‘illegal’. “At least 40 of the 160 roads in my ward are illegal. I cannot lay roads on such stretches,” said an assistant engineer of the Chennai Corporation.
“These illegal roads are developed in unauthorised neighbourhoods. The residents have voter identity cards and councillors are in a scramble to please such people because of the upcoming elections. But in the absence of no-objection certificates from other departments, we are unable to prepare estimates for bitumen-concrete roads or cement-concrete roads on such stretches,” the official said.
Councillor S. Andrews of ward 90 in Ambattur zone said residents of areas such as Gandhi Nagar and Ambedkar Nagar have been demanding roads in their neighbourhoods.
Councillors are now exploring the option of using their ward development funds to lay cement-concrete roads after getting no-objection certificates from land-owning departments, said Prabhakaran, councillor of ward 13 in Tiruvottiyur.
