With State Highways Department all set to begin construction of a new road overbridge at Viralimalai Road Junction soon, residents of Edamalaipattipudur and Crawford have urged the Tiruchirapalli City Corporation to take steps to lay link roads from Edamalaipattipudur to K.K.Nagar and Karumandapam.
The corporation has not made much headway in getting the Defence land for laying a link road, proposed a few years ago, between residential colonies around Edamalaipattipudur/Crawford and K.K.Nagar Main Road. A few years ago, the Corporation Council decided to seek the transfer of about 3,000 square metres of Defence land near Crawford for laying the road after intermittent squabbles between residents of Crawford and Territorial Army (TA) in the city over the former’s demand for a pathway across the Defence land.
Residents of Edamalaipattipudur, Crawford, and several other colonies have been using pathways over the training area of the 117 Infantry Battalion (TA), The Guards, as a shortcut to reach K. K. Nagar, schools, offices, shops, and hospitals. A large number of autorickshaws, two-wheelers, and even four-wheelers are using the narrow gravel pathways.
Irked over the intrusion into their training area used for physical fitness routines, TA authorities dug trenches three to four feet in depth at the entry points to the colonies in 2008, which prevented vehicular access to the Defence land. “Residents, especially schoolchildren, have been forced to take a detour and laying a link road to K.K.Nagar would be of great help to us,” said N.Azhagusubramanian of the Federation of Residents Welfare Associations of Edamalaipattipudur. The residents also seek a link road from Edamalaipattipudur to Karumandapam on the Tiruchi-Dindigul Highway.
“If these link roads are laid, a significant volume of traffic would be diverted through them and this would substantially ease traffic congestion on the narrow overbridge at Viralimalai Road Junction,” he said. Residents also point out that once the construction of new overbridge began, the congestion at Viralimalai Road Junction would worsen.
