4 laning of Tiruchi-Chidambaram National Highway will begin by the end of March.

Work on widening of the 134-km-long Tiruchi-Chidambaram National Highway will begin by the end of March.

Sources in National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), the executing agency, say site clearing works on Tiruchi-Kallagam section of the highway is underway now. The project is being executed in three packages: Tiruchi-Kallagam, Kallagam-Meensuritti and Meensurritti-Chidambaram sections. It is scheduled to be completed within two-and-a-half years. Taken up at an estimated cost of about ₹1,950 crore, it will fulfil a long-pending demand of the people of the region.

The highway will have a four-lane carriageway on the first 50 km from Tiruchi until close to Keezha Pazhur. The stretch will be made a four-lane highway with carriageways of 8.7 metres on both sides. It is the busiest stretch with high traffic volume of trucks, especially those transporting raw material and cement from a clutch of cement industries in the belt.

Besides, the stretch also runs through the fertile Lalgudi-Poovalur belt, which forms part of the canal-irrigated delta areas in Tiruchi district. Beyond this point, it will be a two-lane highway with paved shoulders. The two-lane highway will have a width of 10 metres.

NHAI sources said there was no issue in land acquisition and the work was expected to get underway on all three packages before the end of March. Bypass roads would come up at a handful of places including Lalgudi, Keezha Palur, Mela Palur, Jayamkondam and Kattumannarkovil.