The Rs. 27-crore flyover on the Vandalur-Walajabad Road was inaugurated by Chief Minister Jayalalithaa through videoconferencing from the Secretariat on Friday.
The 1.48-km-long flyover will replace a level crossing near the Vandalur railway station. The State government has spent Rs. 22 crore, and the remaining Rs. 5 crore came from the Railways, according to a press release. Ms. Jayalalithaa also inaugurated 15 new bridges across the State, built at a total cost of Rs. 46.78 crore, on the occasion.
Among them are a road over bridge on the Govindasamy Arts College Road in Tindivanam (Rs. 11 .50 crore) and a bridge over the Cheyyar River near Kazhiyur in Tiruvannamalai district (Rs. 10.7 crore).
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Ms.Jayalalithaa handed over two vehicles equipped with the state-of-the-art, imported Road Management and Data Acquisition System (ROMDAS) to the Highways department. The equipment, each of which costs Rs. 1.50 crore, would evaluate the status and condition of roads in the State. In the first phase, ROMDAS would be used to study the damage caused to roads in Cuddalore and Villupuram districts by Cyclone Thane recently.
Mounted on a vehicle, the ROMDAS equipment has a global positioning system, a laser scanner to make accurate predictions about the quality of road surface, and other gadgets to make systematic, instant calculations about the works that need to be undertaken. The video cameras in the system would record all sign boards, trees, electricity, and telephone posts near the roads. All data, gathered through this equipment, would be transmitted real time to a computer and would be used to assess the damage and prioritise restoration of such roads.