Chennai: Faced with hurdles, Rs 600 crore Ennore Manali Road Improvement Project (EMRIP) would miss the December deadline for work’s completion.
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.
“We have so far completed 75 per cent of the road project. 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 said.
Delay in shifting of the drinking water pipeline running beneath the MORR has affected road widening works.
“The metro water is expected to complete the shifting works only by December. Only after that we will be able to complete road widening works,” the official said. As far as construction of the bridge across Kosathalaiyar at Napalayam on TPP road, the official said the works would be completed only by February next 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 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 would be started.
