It will now be a safe and swift ride between Perambalur and Ariyalur and from Ariyalur to Thanjavur, thanks to the work on widening of the busy stretch. The National Highways wing took up widening of the Perambalur-Ariyalur-Thanjavur highway for a cumulative length of 66 km at an estimate of Rs.157 crore. The project is being implemented in full swing and a major stretch has been completed.
The work involved a Herculean task of uprooting 2,888 trees for widening the road from the seven metres to 10 metres. A majority of 1,437 trees was located in the Ariyalur district and the balance 916, in Perambalur district.
“The actual width of the road is about 14 metres, as the widening allows adequate space for pedestrians and two-wheelers,” an official source told The Hindu on Wednesday.
The department has taken up a study on the environmental impact assessment on the uprooting of the trees for the project. The widening has become inevitable because of the huge volume of traffic on this sector. The soil condition of the stretch was too poor that any amount of repair and maintenance work did not yield the desired results.
Further, the heavy vehicles particularly trucks laden with raw materials for cement factories in Ariyalur and cement consignments from Ariyalur resulted in further weakening of the road quite often.
Also the volume of traffic on the Thanjavur-Ariyalur-Perambalur stretch has been on the rise in the past six years following the four-laning of the Tiruchi-Chennai National Highway.
The department identified 13 km as the ‘weakest’ segment – seven km in Perambalur district and six km in Ariyalur district.
“The existing entire road had been dug out and re-laid with wet-mixed macadam for ensuring adequate safety for speeding vehicles,” the source said.
The proposal did not warrant any acquisition of land but just needed uprooting of the trees.
