It is a story that started in 1964 with the Coimbatore Local Planning Authority suggesting a scheme road between Tiruchi Road and Avanashi Road.
Nearly 50 years later, the story continues with no new chapters being added. The Government Order 303, issued on April 16, 1964 to acquire land to lay a scheme road to provide access to residents to Avanashi Road and Tiruchi Road remains just an order.
If the Corporation were to lay the road, more than 10,000 residents of S.I.H.S. Colony, Karunanidhi Nagar, MGR Nagar, Ganga Nagar, Thiru Vi. Ka. Nagar, Surya Nagar, Kaveri Nagar, Nethajipuram, Mahalakshmi Nagar and Bharathi Nagar would have a very easy access to Avanshi Road.
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The scheme road if laid, will considerably decongest the stretch of Avanashi Road and Tiruchi road within the core city areas.
R. Ravikumar, a resident of the area, says students, above all, will stand to benefit if the road becomes a reality. In the absence of the road, the residents of the aforementioned areas proceed to Kamaraj Road through a circuitous route and then access the Avanashi Road. “It is about 7 km to Avanashi Road.”
If the scheme road were to be a reality, the residents would get to access Avanashi Road at less than half the present distance.
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He says what prevents the Corporation from laying the scheme road are the lack of will and the inability to retrieve an encroached stretch. The scheme road, which is 60 feet wide, starts from Itteri, moves northward and then branches of to the east.
The road that proceeds northward passes through Jaganathan Colony. Around 900 feet of this stretch of 1,660 feet is under encroachment. A place of worship has also encroached on the road space. To make this scheme road, labelled A4A4, a reality around 13 residents of the area had surrendered a portion of their lands to the Government. Mr. Ravikumar is one among those.
He wants the Corporation to lay the road at the earliest.
Another problem the residents of the area face is the closure of access to the railway underpass.
For long, the residents had access to Kamaraj Road and also the burial ground through the railway underpass. With the railway closing it, the residents are forced to take a circuitous route, laments V. Bharathi, a resident of Nethajipuram.
Mr. Ravikumar says the residents of Jaganathan Colony and other areas petitioned twice the district administration – on June 27 and July 11 – but nothing much has come out of it.
P. Shobana, Ward 4 Councillor, says she has raised the issue in the Corporation Council for the last but the authorities have done very little.
The residents, who suffered without regular bus service for long, are forced to change buses and spend close to 45 minutes for a trip, which, if the road were in place, will take only 15 minutes.
She says the Corporation has now linked the scheme road project with the proposed rail-over bridge at Neelikonampalayam and that is causing further delay.