After failing to get the Food Corporation of India to repair FCI Godown Road that branches off Sathyamangalam Road near Ganapathy and leads to airport, the district administration has stepped in to make the road motorable.
Sources said the district administration took it up for discussion at the latest Road Safety Committee meeting as many residents complained about the quality of road.
The Corporation said FCI Godown Road was a part of a 6.60-km stretch of roads that the civic body had planned to develop to provide an alternative road to the airport through Vilankurichi Road and Cheran Maanagar.
The plan was to develop the road right from the Codissia Trade Fair Complex, off Avinashi Road, the Corporation said and added that it had passed a resolution to handover the entire stretch excluding FCI Godown Road to the State Highways Department. Former Councillor of the area C. Nataraj said the Coimbatore Corporation and FCI were at logger heads a few years ago as the civic body wanted the latter to repair the road.
Coimbatore North MLA Amman K. Arjunan said he was taking steps to reach out to the Central Government to have the FCI either repair the road or give a no-objection to the Coimbatore Corporation to develop it. If the FCI did not respond at the earliest, he would have to resort to protest.
Consumer activist and Road Safety Committee member K. Kathirmathiyon said in public interest the FCI should take a decision. Not repairing the road was not an option.
Collector G.S. Sameeran, who chaired the Road Safety Committee meeting, said he had asked Corporation Commissioner Raja Gopal Sunkara to talk to the FCI officials to work out a solution. The priority was to repair the road to not only make it motorable, but also safe for motorist.
And, the long term objective was to ask the State Highways Department to build a pucca road to provide an alternative to reach the airport.
