Thiruvottiyur: Five bhoomipujas in five years

By G Saravanan

Published in The New Indian Express, Chennai on May 4, 2011:

Source:http://expressbuzz.com/cities/chennai/five-bhoomipujas-in-five-years/271215.html

CHENNAI:  The ongoing works on this stretch of road in Thiruvottiyur, north Chennai, has set a record of sorts for its slow progress. It has had five ‘bhoomipujas’  in five years. Besides, the local MLA had even set a one-year deadline in 2009 for completing the work. Yet, the widening work on Thiruvottiyur high road, which connects the city to the northern suburbs, was progressing very slowly.

When the project was first planned in 2006, the State Highways department proposed to convert the entire five-km stretch — from Toll Gate to Ernavur Bridge - as a 66 feet wide four-lane road with a centre-median, box culverts, side-drains and seepage pipes at an estimated cost of Rs 11.50 crores.

Even after five years since the project was envisaged, nothing has changed. The width of the road remains the same, the residents complained. Sources said that due to the inordinate delay in getting land, the project cost had escalated to about Rs 30 crores from the 2006 projection of Rs 11.5 crores, an increase of over 150 per cent.

The widening of the narrow Thiruvottiyur high road has been a long standing demand of the residents of Thiruvottiyur, Ernavur, Kathivakkam and Ennore. The delay in completion of the all-important infrastructure project has hampered the all-round development of the neglected north Chennai suburbs, Jayaraman, Chairman of the Thiruvottiyur Municipality, told City Express.

Traffic snarls are common here since nearly one lakh motorists use the stretch everyday. It was the only major connecting road for 20 big companies, including CPCL, MRF, Ashok Leyland and Concor, to ferry their staff members living in South and Central Chennai to the factory sites in the northern suburbs.

Though the State Highways department, after much pressure from the local residents, had completed construction of the centre median for about two km from Toll Gate point, construction of the side drains and other works are yet to be started.

Besides other bottlenecks, land acquisition (LA) was the major hurdle in completing the project. Sources in the State Highways revealed that the department had paid approximately Rs 12.5 crore for LA (to the revenue department to acquire land) so far and another three to four crore rupees has to be given out for the acquisition.