Tamil Nadu - Chennai   

Highways Authority serves notice on municipality

By K. Manikandan

CHENNAI, NOV. 16. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has served notice on the Pallavaram Municipality, asking the local body to pull down the shelter it constructed at the Pallavaram bus stop in January this year.

The notice, served on November 3, informed the municipality officials that the local body had encroached on land belonging to the National Highways for construction of the shelter. Further, the NHAI had given permission only to the Metropolitan Transport Corporation to construct the shelter and not the municipality.

The NHAI authorities said the municipality had not sought permission from them to construct the shelter. Last year, the municipality had sought permission to construct a couple of structures 20 feet wide and 4 feet long. However, it had built a shelter 200 feet long.

Not only was the shelter illegal because it was an encroachment, it had also added to the traffic congestion on Grand Southern Trunk (GST) Road.

Carriageway

Usually, bus shelters are constructed after acquiring land abutting the road. But in this case, the shelter had been constructed on the carriageway itself, NHAI officials said.

The NHAI officials said they had to act now as the Pallavaram Municipality was planning to construct a similar shelter on the opposite side.

While admitting that the land belonged to the National Highways, Pallavaram municipality officials however said they had constructed the shelter on the western side after getting permission from the Chennai City Roads of the State Highways Department which was in charge of maintenance of the GST Road. The NHAI officials insisted that permission from them was absolutely necessary and that a go-ahead from the State Highways Department was not enough.

Municipality officials said the Rs. 13 lakh shelter was a boon to commuters, describing the notice served on them by the NHAI as going against the interests of the people.

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