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Roadblocks cleared for bypass project



Decks have been cleared for resumption of construction of a bypass road connecting Tiruchi-Madurai and Tiruchi-Karur national highways.

The Union Ministry of Environment and Forest has stated that there was no need for obtaining environmental clearance afresh for the revised alignment of the unfinished road.

The Ministry has said since environmental clearance had been issued for the project, there was no need for issuing a clearance afresh.

National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), the executing agency, is expected to call for tenders soon to execute the work, Collector K. Rajamani told reporters here on Thursday.

The section forms part of a semi-ring road that will come up connecting almost all major national highways around the city, but the project has been much delayed due to various reasons.

It was taken up as part of widening of NH 67 executed on Build Operate and Transfer (BOT) basis by NHAI. The project ran into controversy over its alignment and land acquisition issues in 2006-07.

The bypass road, which will run from Panchapur on NH45 via Thayanur to Jeeyapuram on NH 67, was halted midway in 2010 after the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court, while hearing a petition from farmers’ organisations, struck down the NHAI plan to build the road across Kothamangalam, Kallikudi and Punganur irrigation tanks in Tiruchi district. Farmers complained that the road, if built across the tanks, would affect irrigation and their livelihood. The court had subsequently directed NHAI to lay the bypass road without affecting irrigation sources.

Subsequently, a public hearing was held and a revised alignment was finalised.

The Public Works department also gave its nod for the alignment and NHAI sought environment clearance from the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests last year.

Farmers organisations and residents of the city have since been demanding laying of the road expeditiously on the revised alignment.

NHAI will also submit a status report before the Madras High Court on as a case is pending, Mr. Rajamani said.

Also, work on construction of a bypass stretch between Mathur on Tiruchi-Karaikudi NH and Panchapur on the Tiruchi-Madurai NH, which forms part of the other segment of the semi-ring road, will begin soon.

The State Highways department has promised to complete the road over bridge at Thiruvanaikovil by the end of February, he said to a query.

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