CHENNAI: As expansion works of Manali - Tiruvottiyur bridge has been going at a snail’s pace for the past three years, local residents and office goers are badly hit because of severe traffic snarls in this stretch.
The flyover is located close to CPCL factory along Tiruvottiyur -Ponneri-Pancheti (TPP) Road in Manali. Due to the expansion work, buses and other vehicles are forced to take a long detour of around five to six kilometres along Buckingham Canal bund road to reach Manali and Tiruvottiyur.
As this bund Road is narrow and filled with dust, motorists have a hard time manoeuvring it alongside the heavy container-lorry traffic.
Large pits filled with water lie open near the construction site. In the night, especially with no functioning street lights, this stretch has become more dangerous.
Residents said that they are left in lurch as commuting to even near localities has become a struggle.
“When this flyover was open, I used to take only ten minutes to reach office. But now it takes more than half an hour to just cross this stretch. Vehicles are diverted to ply through an alternate road which is narrow and filled with dust,” said G Gurushankar, a regular commuter.
Buses like 56 D, 44 and 44 C also take a much longer route through Khargil Nagar, Rajaji Nagar and VOC Nagar.
“This is an extra eight kilometres. From Parry’s Corner it used to take only 30-40 mins to reach Manali through this flyover. But now it takes more than an hour. As container lorries also ply through the narrow road, it has become all the worrisome for motorists to ride here,” said H Kasim Basha, of Ennore.
Locals claimed that lack of man power to complete construction work and lack of supervision by highways department were the two main reasons behind this problem.
When Express spoke to the state highways department, a senior official said that major delay was caused due to the alignment of multiple oil and water pipelines along this stretch.
“We had to get permission from PWD to divert vehicles along the bund of the canal. We couldn’t start expansion work without diverting traffic. But we hope to complete this by December,” added the official.