Chennai: Even as Union shipping minister G.K. Vasan announced opening of Ennore Manali Road Improvement Project (EMRIP) by next month, National Highways Authority of India said that the road would be opened for traffic “officially” next month but works on few a stretches would go on.
The Rs 600 crore EMRIP, which was conceptualised in 1998, envisages improvement of about 30 km road network in North Chennai to ease flow of truck traffic from Chennai and Ennore ports and improve road connectivity between ports to national highway network. The project had missed several deadlines.
“We have so far completed 80 per cent of the works. Most of the widening and improvement works on Tiruvottiyur-Ponneri-Panchetti Road (9 km), northern segment of Inner Ring Road (8.1 km), Ennore Expressay (6 km) and Manali Oil Refinery Road (MORR) (5.4 km) were completed except for few stretches where the land was not handed over,” a senior NHAI official explained.
As far as construction of the bridge across Kosathalaiyar at Napalayam on TPP Road, the official said that the works would be completed only by March this year.
NHAI official said that no headway was made in shifting tenements in Cherian Nagar and Nalla Thanneer Odai (NTO) Kuppam along Ennore Expressway and handing over the 1.6 km stretch from zero gate to S.N. Chetty Street in the port trust.
“If the tenements were not shifted, we will be forced to handover those stretches to the state government for widening,” the official said.
The Chennai port trust officials were not able to begin reclamation of land on seafront as demanded by the fishermen for parting their land in lieu of construction of carriageway from zero gate to S.N. Chetty Road.
Only after getting the Coastal Regulatory Zone clearance, the reclamation of the land for the project would start, the official added.
