With the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) awaiting sanction of funds for construction of the bypass road connecting Tiruchi-Madurai and Tiruchi-Karur national highways, Collector M. Pradeep Kumar on Tuesday reviewed the progress of land acquisition and instructed NHAI officials to expedite the project.
The bypass will form part of a semi-ring road connecting major national highways around the city. It will run from Panjapur on Tiruchi-Madurai Highway (NH45) via Thayanur to Thindukarai near Jeeyapuram on Tiruchi-Karur stretch of NH 67. The project ran aground after farmers raised objections to the road being laid across irrigation tanks.
The project was halted midway in 2010 after the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court, while hearing a petition from farmers’ organisations, struck down the NHAI plan to build the road across Kothamangalam, Kallikudi and Punganur irrigation tanks in Tiruchi district.
The project was originally taken up as part of the widening of NH 67 executed on Build Operate and Transfer (BOT) basis by NHAI. It ran into controversy over alignment and land acquisition issues in 2006-07. Farmers complained that the road, if built across the tanks, would affect irrigation and their livelihood. The court ordered that the bypass road be laid without affecting irrigation sources. Subsequently, a revised alignment was finalised after a public hearing.
The NHAI has since drawn up a Detailed Project Report (DPR) for construction of the bypass road on a revised alignment and the final approval is awaited from the NHAI headquarters.
NHAI sources told The Hindu that the land acquisition for the project had also reached the final stages. About 33 hectares of lands in about four villages were being acquired on a stretch of about six km under the new alignment.
The district administration has been pushing for expediting the long-pending projects, especially as an Integrated Bus Terminus is coming up at Panjapur and the bypass road will ensure smooth connectivity to major highways around the city. “The Collector asked us to push through the project and we are also following it up with our headquarters,” sources in the NHAI said.
Though NHAI officials were wary of committing a specific time-frame, they said efforts were being made to commence the work at the earliest.
Mr.Pradeep Kumar told The Hindu said that 90% of the land acquisition had been completed. “Electricity poles and high tension lines need to be shifted; they have to prepare the estimates and after that they will have to seek sanction of funds for the project. I expect the whole process to be completed in about a month’s time and the tenders to be called by mid-August,” he said.
