The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Tambaram residents seek access to bridge

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 02, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Tambaram residents seek access to bridge

Staff Reporter

Bridge connects Grand Southern Trunk Road with Chitlapakkam Main Road

TAMBARAM: Residents of East Tambaram on Wednesday spelt out the reasons for seeking access to the Road Over Bridge under construction to replace the railway level crossing near Tambaram Sanatorium.

At an interaction with officials of RITES Limited and the State Highways Department, the residents sought to know why East Tambaram was being denied access to the bridge connecting Grand Southern Trunk Road with Chitlapakkam Main Road.

The company organised the interaction following the recommendation of a three-member committee constituted on the direction of the Madras High Court following a public interest litigation petition filed by the residents.

Survey presented

Imtiaz Ahmed, general manager, RITES, Bangalore, made a presentation of a survey made about ten days ago. The presentation centred around traffic flow from East Tambaram and Chitlapakkam, present status of the project, scope for access to the bridge from East Tambaram and the costs involved if re-design was carried out.

Residents told the officials that they never opposed a landing on Chitlapakkam, but were only stressing on an access from their area. They also took exception to the statistics presented by RITES officials. They said the survey was conducted ten days ago, during summer vacation. They wanted to know why there was no access from East Tambaram, though the flow of traffic was more, compared to Chitlapakkam. The reasons cited for not providing access — construction of a bridge near Tambaram railway station, need for land acquisition and lesser flow of traffic — were false, the residents claimed. Even the officials had conceded that provision for an access from East Tambaram was possible and economically viable. Mr. Ahmed said the inputs from the residents would be included in his report.

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