The Rs. 600-crore Ennore-Manali Road Improvement Project (Emrip) will miss its third deadline in a span of seven months, due to a delay in shifting of tenements by State government officials.
The project, conceived a decade ago, is aimed at decongesting the road from Madhavaram junction to the Chennai Port Trust of vehicular traffic. The Unions shipping minister G.K. Vasan laid the foundation stone for this project in January 2011 and it was to be opened by June 2013.
On Monday, Mr. Vasan said the inauguration, which had been scheduled for January, would take place by end-February and attributed the delay to the shifting of tenements in NTO Kuppam and Cherian Nagar. He urged the State government to do the needful at the earliest.
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Talking to reporters after inaugurating railway siding infrastructure at Ennore Port, he said that till date National Highways Authority of India had completed nearly 80 per cent of the expansion work.
Regarding a delay in widening 1.6-km of road from Chennai Port zero gate to S.N. Chetty Street, a Chennai Port official said it was due to non-availability of earth and gravel needed to raise the level of the road.