A major milestone for the widening of the 10.5 km urban stretch of the East Coast Road from Thiruvanmiyur to Akkarai is expected to be achieved by April when the land acquisition process would be completed. Two lanes will be added to the 4-lane facility, easing traffic movement on the road that leads to Mamallapuram and Puducherry.
Sources in the Highways Department said that presently, the valuation of lands is in the final stage and already, an amount of ₹100 crore has been disbursed to hundreds of land owners in the six revenue villages of Thiruvanmiyur, Kottivakkam, Palavakkam, Neelankarai, Injambakkam and Vettuvankani.
The widening of the stretch is expected to help motorists commute faster. D. Vijayakumar, who travels to Injambakkam regularly, said that though the road has four lanes, the space available for motorists is limited due to haphazard parking of vehicles and encroachments by shopkeepers. “You cannot travel fast on that stretch. At the maximum, you can proceed at 30 km/hour even during non-peak periods since there are many pedestrian crossings and small roads joining in from the sides,” he said.
Residents complained that the widening had been taken up in bits and pieces so far leading to accidents and the slowing down of vehicular movement. K. Ravi, a resident of Vettuvankanni, said the work must be taken up and completed at the earliest. “The widening was supposed to have been taken up in 2013 since the announcement came before that. In 2005-06, the government had granted approval to widen the road. We can only wonder why it has taken so much time for the work to commence,” he said.
An official said that they would soon take possession of the available space, as well as land on which componund walls and pathways are located. The acquisition process is being carried out by the Revenue Department. The work took sometime since there were just too many land parcels — over 700 — and the ownership of each property had to be scrutinised and settlements made properly,” explained an official.
Simultaneously, since the consultant is already working on the detailed project for the stretch, tenders for the formation of the two lanes will be called in three months time. The consultant has also been asked to study the possibility of a grade separator at the Akkarai junction on the ECR where a link road from Rajiv Gandhi Salai joins, the official said.
As per norms, roads need to be widened if they carry more than 20,000 passenger car units (PCU) per day. At present, the road witnesses over 40,000 PCU, which works out to 30,000 vehicles a day.
