NHAI yet to take a call on bypass between Panjapur and Thindukarai

Uncertainty prevails over the fate of the proposed bypass between Panjapur on Tiruchi-Madurai National Highway and Thindukarai on Tiruchi-Karur National Highway as the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is yet to take a call on the project

Uncertainty prevails over the fate of the proposed bypass between Panjapur on Tiruchi-Madurai National Highway and Thindukarai on Tiruchi-Karur National Highway as the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is yet to take a call on the project.

The NHAI is believed to be examining the feasibility of making the bypass a four-lane road although a detailed project report (DPR) for a two-lane road with paved shoulders has been prepared. The proposed three-km long elevated corridor at Panjapur, for which tenders were called already by the NHAI, seems to have been kept on hold.

With the State government building an integrated bus terminus (IBT), a truck terminal and an integrated vegetable market at Panjapur, the NHAI seems to be awaiting the projects to take a final shape before finalising the plans for the bypass and the elevated corridor.

Work on the bypass was taken up 15 years ago as part of the widening of the Tiruchi-Karur NH section by the NHAI. The work 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. The court ordered that the road should be laid without affecting irrigation sources.

Subsequently, a new alignment was finalised and it was projected as part of a semi ring road from Thuvakudi to Thindukarai via Mathur and Panjapur connecting the Tiruchi-Thanjavur, Tiruchi-Karaikudi, Tiruchi-Madurai, Tiruchi-Dindigul, and Tiruchi-Karur national highways.

While the bypass between Thuvakudi and Panjapur was completed recently, there is still no sign of the work on the other section between Panjapur and Thindukarai resuming.

NHAI officials had been maintaining that the DPR had been prepared (for a two-lane road with paved shoulders) and the land acquisition process was almost complete.