Sathyamangalam Road widening project: Corporation processes file after a year’s delay

Widening the Ganapathy stretch of Sathyamangalam Road hangs fire as Coimbatore Corporation is yet to acquire land. | Photo Credit: S. Siva Saravanan

A year receiving the money from the Housing and Urban Development Department to facilitate Sathyamangalam Road expansion, the Coimbatore Corporation has in February this year forwarded the file to the authority concerned for acquiring land.

This delay now threatens to delay the road expansion project as the National Highways has floated tender for preparing detailed project report.

The National Highways, after mooting a proposal to widen the congested Velan Theatre-Surya Hospital stretch of the Sathyamangalam Road in Ganapathy, identified the extent of land to be acquired and forwarded a letter to the Coimbatore Corporation.

In the letter, the road development agency asked the Corporation to acquire the lands it required. Based on the letter, the Corporation passed a resolution at the October 2020 Council meeting. Therein, the Corporation said it would have to acquire 73,250 sq.ft. land from 151 owners and estimated that required ₹ 38.64 crore.

As it did not have the required sum, the Corporation wrote to the Housing and Urban Development Department to release it from the Infrastructure Development Fund, maintained by the Coimbatore Local Planning Authority.

Based on the request, the Department released the money in February 2021. But after the receiving the money, the Corporation, it appears, did very little. A Corporation officer told The Hindu that it was only in the last week of February 2022 that the civic body had forwarded the file with details of land to be acquired to the district revenue officer in-charge of land acquisition at the Coimbatore Collectorate.

Amid this delay, the National Highways has called for tender for preparation of detailed project report for expanding the stretch of the Sathyamangalam Road. If the Corporation did not have the land at its disposal before the completion of the detailed project report, there were chances that the National Highways would not take up the project this year, said sources in the know.

K. Ranganayaki, ward 29 councillor, said she would take it up with Mayor A. Kalpana and at the Council meeting to see to it that the civic body accorded the highest priority to complete the land acquisition process at the earliest.

K. Kathimathiyon, consumer activist, said it was unfortunate that the Corporation sat on the file and ₹ 38.64 crore compensation for a year. This delay by Corporation had now threatened the very project. It should now ensure that the land acquisition was completed in time to facilitate the detailed project report preparation.