Widening of the Tiruninravur-Tiruvallur stretch of the Chennai-Tirupati Highway is expected to commence soon. The contract for ₹304 crore for the 17.5 km-long stretch has been awarded and the four-lane road with paved shoulders will help improve road safety.
The road will have a 5-metre wide median and paved shoulders on either side. Lighting and stormwater drains too have been included in the contract conditions to improve motorist comfort. Though land has been acquired for six-lanes, the stretch would be widened into 4-lanes since the traffic warrants only that width. Around 15,000 vehicles take the road daily.
However, the three major bridges and seven minor bridges would be constructed with six-lane width, keeping the future in mind. “Other facilities including the 12 underpasses and 29 culverts too would be constructed accordingly. The road would be laid from end-to-end to prevent encroachments,” explained an official of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), the project implementing agency. The work would be taken up on Engineering, Procurement, Construction (EPC) contract basis and would take two years to complete.
Pattabhiram resident T. Sadagopan said the widening project had been a long-pending demand of residents in the western suburbs. “It is an important link to Tirupati, a major religious centre. If the road is widened, traffic will definitely increase. The stretch from Tiruvallur to Tirupati too needs to have four-lane width,” he said.
Raghunathan, a resident of Ambattur, said the widening of the Padi-Tiruninravur stretch too should be taken up soon. It had been over 10 years since the widening was announced. “That road has many bends and has varying width all along, making driving extremely difficult. It does not have enough lighting and when it rains, there are points that get water-logged heavily,” he pointed out.
