Work on to lay Tambaram Eastern bypass, acquire forest land

Work to lay the 9.3-km-long Tambaram Eastern bypass from Perungalathur on the GST Road to Rajakilpakkam on Velachery Tambaram Road is unable to move forward due to the lack of forest clearance for a stretch running to 1,100m.  

Raghunathan, a resident of Perungalathur, who travels frequently to Madambakkam, said that unless this stretch was completed, the road would remain useless. “If this route is completed, I need not have to take the busy GST Road, which is a national highway to reach Tambaram, but instead take the Velachery-Tambaram Road. This work has been on for over two decades,” he pointed out.  

Sources in the Highways department said that the land required belonged to the Forest department. “We require around 650m and another 350m is needed to complete the Perungalathur grade separator. The Chengalpattu district administration has to take a call about the land. We are ready to pay the compensation needed,” explained a source.  

A former engineer of the Highways department said that the Forest department could provide permission temporarily to complete the work. Sources in the Forest department said that the land required was more than one hectare and that the Revenue department still had some formalities to complete for them to grant temporary access to the Highways department.  

Meanwhile, the Highways department has called for tenders for ₹24 crore to lay the road for a distance of 1 km. It is also completing the black topping of the road for a distance of 4 km to Camp Road. At Rajakilpakkam, where the road will run along the bund of a waterbody, permissions have been obtained from the Water Resources department. Encroachments in the area are being removed. The Bypass project was envisaged in the CMDA’s first Master plan in 1979 and the State government had sanctioned ₹1 crore as a token amount towards land acquisition in 2004.