Padalam flyover opens ahead of Deepavali, eases traffic on Chennai-Tiruchy NH

CHENNAI: Traffic congestion on the Chennai-Tiruchy National Highway is expected to ease, with the 1-km vehicular underpass (VUP) at Padalam junction near Chengalpattu opening to traffic on Friday night.

The stretch was opened just as thousands of people from Chennai and its neighbourhoods began travelling to their hometowns ahead of Deepavali on Sunday.

The VUP, a flyover in common parlance, is one of three such projects being executed by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) between Chengalpattu and Tindivanam to ease traffic congestion and provide a permanent solution to accident-prone stretches. Constructed at a cost of Rs 24 crore, the underpass is expected to eliminate a major bottleneck on the busy highway.

Two more vehicular underpasses, one at Pukkathurai-Uthiramerur Road-GST Road junction and the other in Maduranthagam, are expected to be completed by the end of November. A flyover at the Tindivanam-Tiruvannamalai highway junction is scheduled for completion by May next year. The four projects are being executed at a combined cost of Rs 106 crore.

Construction of the VUPs has caused traffic congestion on GST Road, particularly during festival periods and weekends when large numbers of people travel from Chennai to their native places. The works, taken up in 2024, were delayed due to restrictions imposed on construction activities amid heavy vehicular movement.

The 100-km Tambaram-Tindivanam section has eight lanes between Perungalathur and Chettipunniyam but narrows to four lanes beyond that stretch up to Tindivanam. Though some stretches have been widened to six lanes, the existing road infrastructure remains inadequate to handle the growing traffic volume on this key corridor connecting Chennai with Tiruchy, Madurai, Tirunelveli, and other southern districts.