Tiruvannamalai administration begins ground work for green corridor

Talking to this reporter, Collector Kandasamy said that the administration from 2013-14 to till date, has sanctioned 16,050 plots as approved layouts, which works out to 1,405 acres in the district.

Similarly, last year the government laid 93 roads for a distance of 106 km acquiring 100 acres of agricultural land. “People willingly provided land for roads in the district.

In the same way, the government has been working on green corridor,” he added.

Referring to the Chennai-Madurai and Chennai-Bengaluru highways, passing through Tiruvannamalai district, Kandasamy said that on an average 3,000 accidents took place on highways since 2001 and approximately 10,000 were being injured in such mishaps.

“This was because both the roads were catering to a traffic volume more than their designed capacity.”

“While the two highways were meant for the use of 40,000 PCUs (passenger car unit) daily, the Chennai-Madurai highway carried double the number, whereas the ChennaiBengaluru highway carried a little over 60,000 PCUs daily” Kandasamy added.

“The present corridor is essential, for the two highways cannot be widened as expanding both the stretches will require 20,000 acres of land and nearly 1.50 lakh buildings have to be demolished,” he added.

Official surveys revealed that congestion due to traffic and waiting time at toll plazas was around 45 minutes, besides emissions from vehicles polluting the atmosphere during the said waiting period. The green corridor on the other hand would reduce time by 51 minutes along with curbing carbon emissions, he said.

Though locals and activists are opposing the project in the neighbouring Salem and Dharmapuri districts, Tiruvannamalai district administration plans to explain the advantages of the project to locals to seek their cooperation. “Though activists claim there will be massive loss of forest cover because of the green corridor, they are ignorant of the fact that except for 3 km, the remaining 12 km will be tunnel at various points,” he said.