TAMIL NADU: Minister sails away from planned road roko

By G Saravanan

Published in The New Indian Express, Chennai on July 23, 2011:

Source:http://expressbuzz.com/states/tamilnadu/minister-sails-away-from-planned-road-roko/296921.html
CHENNAI: Slow progress of work on the Chennai-Ennore Port road connectivity project coupled with continuing congestion of container trailers on North Chennai roads forced Union Shipping Minister G K Vasan to go off the roads on Friday on his way to the Port and instead take a sea route.

Though Chennai Port Trust officials claimed that the Minister’s visit had been planned from the start via sea, informed sources told Express that the port management altered his original road-travel plan at the last minute, on recei­ving information that a group of con­tai­ner trailer drivers were likely to stage a road-roko on the Ennore Expressway.

Sources in the export-import business said that despite the Minister’s repea­ted assurances that more gates would be opened to the Port in order to ease the wait for trailer drivers and the resulting traffic congestion, nothing substantial has been done. Thousands of trailers are forced to share a single gate (Gate-1 at Kasimedu) for both inward and outward movement of cargo, which leaves drivers waiting in queue for days.

As the information of the road-roko appea­red credible, the Minister and his entourage from Chennai preferred to sail on a boat to Ennore in the afternoon. They returned to Chennai in the evening.

According to a trailer driver, who requested anonymity, there was a plan for an agitation, to bring to the notice of the Minister the pathetic situation that trailer drivers are put in. The port management, he said, always hid these facts from the Minister.