The elevated road project will connect the Chennai port to Maduravoyal.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday laid the foundation stone for the Rs 1,600-crore elevated road project, which would connect the Chennai Port to Maduravoyal (NH4).
Speaking after the stone laying ceremony, he said the 19-km road project was aimed at quick and continuous dispersal of freight in and out of the Chennai Port to other parts of the country via the GQ corridor. This would be the longest elevated corridor project in the country.
The four-lane elevated corridor is being taken up by the National Highways Authority of India on a build operate and transfer (BOT) basis.
The Prime Minister said around 12,000 families of the weaker sections, especially slum dwellers, will be rehabilitated by providing alternative shelters. The Tamil Nadu government and the Chennai Port Trust have agreed to share equally the cost of land acquisition and rehabilitation and resettlement of slum dwellers, he added.
In Tamil Nadu, the entire stretch of the Golden Quadrilateral and NHDP Phase-I for a length of 342 km has been completed and these stretches are being taken up for six-laning. Similarly, the entire stretch of North-South Corridor for a length of 756 km is nearing completion.
He said the government had also initiated a programme for four-laning of over 12,000 km, which will be undertaken in public-private partnership under NHDP-III. Further, the government has approved construction of 1,000 km of Expressways under NHDP Phase-VI and construction of ring roads, flyovers and bypasses in select stretches under NHDP Phase-VII. These projects are targeted to be completed by 2015.
Under the Bharat Nirman programme, a time-bound business plan has been prepared to provide all weather rural road connectivity to 66,000 villages. The investment requirement for achieving this goal has been estimated at Rs 48,000 crore. The government has expanded the funds available under the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sarak Yojana and also created other innovative financing mechanisms so that the programme is fully funded.
The government has taken a policy decision that all future projects under NHDP will be offered in the PPP mode.
