Chennai: The broadening of 577 km of roads, converting them into four lane highways, at a cost of Rs 4,984 crore and converting 1710 km of roads into two-way passages in the last three years are just two of the many efforts made by the State government to improve road infrastructure, which has been the main cause of Tamil Nadu becoming the second largest economy in the country.
Chief Minister M K Stalin has been taking steps to develop the highways of the State with a view to turning them into world class roads as history has it that it was former Chief Minister M Karunanidhi who pioneered the development of roads by connecting rural pockets to urban areas through a network of roads in 1971.
It was that initiative of Karunanidhi the brought villages closer to towns and cities, triggering an overall development in the State, and led to the State coming on top with 153 km roads for every 100 square kilometer area in 2010 when the national average was 103 km of road In every 100 square kilometer, says official data.
Taking off from the robust road infrastructure, the present DMK government had embarked on a slew of road development schemes under which the level of 1281 road bridges have been raised, besides launching a project to pave 4581 km of roads at a cost of Rs 1610 crore and completing the work on 4492 km of road stretches.
In the past three years, as per government data, work on the construction of 109 bye-pass roads were started and 18 of them have been completed. Work on the construction of a flyover in Madurai was expedited in 2023-24 after it remained in a limbo without any progress for many years since it was launched in 2011.
Ever since Stalin took over as Chief Minister work on the construction of 70 rail over bridges were launched and work was completed on 22 bridges costing Rs 863 crore, and opened for road users.
An app ‘Our Roads’ has been launched to make the State roads accident free by identifying damaged roads and levelling potholes with the help of the public. Road engineers would be informed of complaints on potholes on roads through email and State roads would be repaired in 24 hours and village roads in 72 hours. So far, 2,129 complaints have been redressed through the app.
A pedestrian pathway linking the Vivekananda Rock Memorial off the Kanyakumari coast and the adjoining rock, on which the Thiruvaluar statue has been set up, was being constructed at a cost of Rs 37 crore and another 3.30 km road connecting the recently constructed Jallikattu coliseum with the Kuttimeikipatti Athikaraipalam main road was converted into a two-lane road.
