27 arterial roads will be cleared of encroachments and widened
Encroachments being cleared on Paper Mills Road, as a part of road widening drive undertaken in the city (Photo: DC)
Chennai: As many as 27 busy main roads in the city will soon be widened and the work is expected to complete by the year-end. While the work of removing the encroachments has already begun on Paper Mills Road last week, sources say, about one lakh square metre private land will be taken over for the road widening project.Of the 27 main roads in the city, 24 roads were mentioned by the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority in its second master plan for the Chennai Metropolitan Area 2016 released in 2008. The Chennai corporation, in an effort to decongest the traffic added three more main roads — Valluvarkottam high road, Kodambakkam high road and Annai Nagar in Perungudi.
Other main roads include Paper Mills Road, Nelson Manickam Road, Arcot Road, Kaliamman Koil Street, Sardar Patel Road, Velachery Main Road, Strahans Road, Perambur Barracks Road, Kaliamman Koil Street, Paper Mills Road, Sembium Red Hills Road, L.B. Road and Kalki Krishnamurthy Salai. Officials say the corporation will carry out the project in a phased manner and the widening will be done on 14 main roads in the first phase.
Sources from the corporation say, “The land plan schedule will include the identification of road width survey number and survey plot number of the commercials and residential located on the roadside.”After this, the extent of area that need to be acquired and property analysis will be done and stakeholders meetings with owners of the properties will be held for discussions.
“While the owners of some roads are ready to give their land as they feel they are located so close to the road and heavy traffic disturbs their domestic life, land acquisition from the public will be difficult on most of the roads. Because, the project will be carried only on arterial roads where commercial establishments are more,” official add. “Cash will not be given to the land/building owners as compensation in most of the cases, instead Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) will be encouraged, wherein the landowners’ assets are taken over or acquired by the government for the development of an area. The right to build the property in another location is encouraged,” he adds.
When asked about the fund involved in the project, he says, “Since cash compensation will not be followed, fund is needed for demolishing the roadside properties and for laying the road. The estimation for this will be calculated only in the coming days.”Sources also say, “Widening will not be done throughout the stretch, but in places, where there are bottlenecks.”
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