With a section of residents of Srirangam opposing the move to open the newly built road over bridge (ROB) at Thirunavaikovil without completing service lanes and other allied works, Collector S.Sivarasu on Tuesday said the pending projects would be completed within the next three to four months.
The ROB is set to be opened for traffic by Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami through video conference from Chennai on Wednesday.
Residents are apprehensive that once the bridge is opened, work on building service lanes and allied works such as construction of a traffic island near Gandhi Road could slacken.
Accompanied by City Police Commissioner A. Amalraj and Corporation Commissioner N. Ravichandran, the Collector inspected the bridge on Tuesday and held extensive discussions with officials of the Highways department (Projects Division), which executed the project, on the pending works.
Speaking to reporters later, Mr. Sivarasu said the process of awarding compensation for land acquired for the project was underway. Once it was completed, the service roads would be built.
Attributing the delay in building the service lanes to litigations, he said all legal hurdles had been cleared and the land acquisition would be completed soon. A traffic island would also be constructed on Gandhi Road-Chennai Trunk Road intersection.
With extensive traffic diversions being enforced in Srirangam over the past couple of years to facilitate construction of the bridge, residents of Srirangam and Thiruvanaikovil have been complaining of hardship caused by traffic congestion within the island town.
The authorities have drawn flak over the slow progress in construction of the service lanes. The lanes are essential to ensure smooth flow of traffic beneath the bridge, residents contend. Already, a large number of motorists are using the kutcha road beneath the bridge.
The ROB was sanctioned by the State government in 2011, but construction began only in 2016. The old bridge on Chennai Trunk Road was demolished to make way for the new structure.
As per the revised estimates, the ROB has been built at a cost of ₹125 crore including ₹69 crore for acquisition of land. The bridge runs for a length of 1,430.28 metres and has a width of 17.20 metres. While the Chennai-Tiruchi arm of the bridge has four lanes, the Kallanai arm has three.
