Traffic congestion on the Ennore High Road is expected to ease with the much-awaited Tiruvottiyur Parking Yard for the Chennai Port being opened for operations by Union Minister for Shipping G K Vasan on Friday.
A Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) was also signed between the Chennai Port Trust and the Central Warehousing Corporation (CWC) for developing and operating seal verification facilities at the yard.
The parking yard, which currently has the capacity to accommodate 250 trailers, is intended to reduce the strain on the Madhavaram seal verification facility and the perennial congestion on the Ennore High Road.
“The existing arrangement not only affected port efficiency, but also the lives of citizens in North Chennai,” said Vasan, while inaugurating the yard. “The yard will reduce congestion on this road and can be seen as a step towards the opening of the EMRIP road project in January,” he added.
The ` 5.81-crore yard is built on 17,500 sq.m of the 28 sq.m of land leased from the Chennai Corporation for a period of 30 years.
The yard, which also has a documentation centre, makes it possible for Port-bound container lorries to have their documents verified and then proceed to the port without waiting for the same at the port gate.
This should help avoid trailers from waiting on the Ennore Expressway for document verification.
The CWC is looking to develop and maintain a seal verification facility, similar to the one it operates at Madhavaram, on 2300 sq.m of the yard. While the facility has been given approval in-principle by the Inter Ministerial Group, the port is awaiting approval from the Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance and the Customs Department to commence operation.
“CWC will begin seal verification operations as soon as the approval comes through,” said B B Pattnaik, Managing Director, CWC.
Vasan also asserted that the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) had given the assurance that the Ennore Manali Road Improvement Project would be completed by January next year and that interior railway tracks in the port were being expanded.
The goods traffic on rail is expected to jump to 30 per cent from 7 per cent of the overall tonnage handled.