The Deccan Chronicle 09.08.2010
Road widening stays on paper
Chennai, Aug. 8: A project to widen the Cochrane Basin Road that connects GNT Road and Tiruvottiyur has rema-ined on paper for more than a decade. The proposal to widen the road was made to help decongest the busy and narrow Tiruvottiyur High Road.
Motorists complain that it takes at least 15 to 20 minutes to reach Basin Bridge from IOC at Tondiarpet during rush hours due to heavy vehicle movement, haphazard parking of lorries and encroachments. “The situation is bad between the Vaidyanathan new overbri-dge road and the Tondiarpet road junctions along the CB Road, as traffic piles up on the narrow stretch whenever MTC buses or share autorickshaws halt there, said S. Prabhu Kumar, a resident of the IOC.
According to a senior official of the corporation, Coc-hrane Basin Road is among the 25 bus routes proposed for widening under the transfer of developmental rights scheme, which was introduced in the second masterplan. “We will take up the widening project after the government gives us the go ahead for the TDR scheme,” said the official.
Under the TDR scheme, any person whose land is taken over by the government for any infrastructure development project will be given a TDR certificate that will allow him or her to build floor space amounting to 1.5 times the land acquired.
The official also said, “The pending work on the railway overbridge on the Cochrane Basin Road will be completed by Dec-ember.” He further added that the Chennai corporation and the Southern Railway were jointly executing the Rs 16.6 crore project.
Meanwhile, K. Mariappan, a resident of Manali, said that if the road were widened, it would help decongest the Tiruvottiyur High Road.
