A public interest litigation (PIL) petition has been filed in the Madras High Court accusing the Centre of having dropped a proposal to convert the high priority four-lane Chennai-Tiruchi-Madurai economic corridor into a six-lane highway without disclosing any reason.
The petitioner, S. Yuvaraj, 41, of Salem, claimed that the proposal was dropped to accommodate the ₹10,000 crore Chennai-Salem eight lane expressway which, according to him, was not at all required in view of the thin traffic density between the two destinations.
In his affidavit, the litigant said the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways had announced the Bharatmala Pariyojana Phase- I scheme on October 24, 2017, after obtaining clearance from the Public Investment Board and approval from the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA).
The scheme included development of economic corridors (44 projects), expressways (seven projects) and inter-corridor roads (65 projects) that were scientifically identified. The proposed Chennai-Salem expressway project did not find a place in the project announced in October last.
However, on March 1, 2018, the Ministry suddenly issued a gazette notification declaring a completely new National Highway numbered as NH-179B starting from the junction of NH-179A near Harur in Salem to the junction of NH-32 near Tambaram in Chennai.
‘Against law’
The notification had been issued under Section 2(2) of the National Highways Act of 1956, the petitioner said and claimed that the legal provision could be invoked only to declare an existing State highway into a national highway and not for declaring a new national highway altogether.
He also contended that the notification had been issued even before a feasibility report, containing details of the preliminary land acquisition plan, was submitted and an in-principle approval from the CCEA was obtained as required under the Bharatmala Pariyojana scheme.
Mr. Yuvaraj also claimed that a Haryana-based private firm, engaged for preparing a feasibility report after the declaration, had not given adequate attention to the characteristics of the expressway, study of alternatives, traffic survey and analysis, economic analysis and sensitivity analysis.
Stating that six different routes already existed between Chennai and Salem, he said that capacity augmentation projects were already under way in those routes, and therefore, there was absolutely no necessity for laying an eight-lane expressway by spending a huge amount of money. On the other hand, the Chennai-Tiruchi-Madurai economic corridor with an Annualised Average Daily Traffic of 43,671 passenger car units had been dropped from the Bharatmala Pariyojana Phase I without any rhyme or reason, he claimed.
