Road expansion leads nowhere

Chennai: Besides traffic snarls, arterial roads in Chennai, including Nelson Manickam road, Paper Mills road, Kaalia­mma­n Koil street, Thiruvottiyur hig­h road, Tiruvan­miyur­–V­al­mi­ki nagar stretch, VOC str­eet and George Town have som­ething in common, these are the roads that are awaitin­g expansion for the past several years.

Though the corporation has been hinting at road expansion plans for the past five years, no major road exp­ansion works have been taken up in the city since 2008.

“Road expansion has always b­e­e­n a difficult task for the city co­­rporation even during early ‘9­0s as there used to be a lot of li­t­igation affecting road wide­ni­n­­­g,” explains former city corp­o­r­a­­tion engineer A. Swami­n­at­h­an.

There has to be a lot of coordination between the corporation and revenue authorities to get the required land for road widening. Only with effective participation of the revenue department, can road widening be executed. Now there are provisions under the Highways Act to speed up acquisition, he explains.

Whenever any major bridge works were taken up in the city, the approach and service roads ha­ve been widened.

For inst­ance, Usman road, Cha­mie­r’s road and Dr Radha­kri­shn­an Salai were widened in recent years when new bridges were constructed. But widening roads in north Chennai had always been difficult due to high density of residential settlements leading to litigation, said a senior corporation engineer.

However, the corporation council is taking steps to widen a few stretches of roads, opined the engineer.

Five years ago, the corporation came up with the idea of issuing development rights certificate for property owners who would be affected by the widening of roads such as VOC road and Paper Mills road, but the public is not convinced about the idea and there has to be more concessions for those who lose their land for road widening, opined S. Jothiraj, a wholesale trader in Washermenpet.

Scope for expanding Tiruvanmiyur road

Chennai: A set of arterial roads has come under the corporation’s consideration for e­xp­­­ansion. The Mathur main road and Sa­nthome main road are also some of t­h­e roads being considered for expansion.

According to city corporation sources, the much-neglected Madh­avaram milk colony road, connecting Mathur gate, is all set to be widened and repaired at a cost of Rs 7.50 crore.

The corporation passed a resolution in this regard at its recent council meeting.

A few congested roads at Tiruv­anmiyur go unnoticed. The Valmiki temple road often chokes with traffic.

P. Murugan, a resident of Tiruva­nmiyur, says, “During the evening peak hours, the road is severely clogged. Till Neelankarai, the road has shrunk with encroachments and the traffic crawls. Share autos only add to the problem by stopping wherever they please to take in passengers.”

“The houses are constructed so close to the road so that it affects traffic flow. A bridge from Tidel Park to Tiruvanmiyur RTO office is proposed by the civic body and once the project materialises, this road will be widened,” said S. Murugan, Tiruvanmiyur zone chairman, adding that land acquisition remains a thorny issue. “We are also planning to widen congested LB road,” he said.

For tackling the problem of land acquisition, the CMDA in 2007 advised Chennai corporation to popularise the concept of development rights certificate, which entitles the public affected by land acquisition to avail of additional floor space index (FSI).

This FSI can be used by the beneficiaries to transfer it to realtors or make use of the FSI in their new constructions.

Santhome high road is also set to be widened by Chennai corporation.