Avinashi Road widening work started
The “works on ground” for widening Avanashi Road into a six-lane road had been expedited and the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board has commenced the drive for removing the lamp poles and transformers to the extreme road boundary for enabling the Highways Department to start its share of work.The pace of work, co-ordination and contribution from the departments concerned was reviewed by the Secretary to Government, Information Technology, C. Chandramouli, District Collector, Neeraj Mittal, Highways Divisional Engineer, K. Vellingiri and Chief Engineer (Distribution) of Tamil Nadu Electricity Board, S. Shanmugananthan.The District Administration has planned to hold periodical meetings to closely co-ordinate the work with all the departments and agencies concerned so that work pace was not affected.The State Government had allocated Rs. 27 crores for widening the Avanashi Road into a six-lane one right from Avanashi Road flyover to Neelambur bypass road junction.Avanashi Road also proved to be a gateway for the long-distance traffic bound for Tirupur, Erode, Salem, Bangalore and Chennai. Hence, the Government had decided to widen the stretch for removing the bottleneck.In order to speed up the work and enable the agencies involved to sustain the pace of progress, the District Collector, Neeraj Mittal has appealed to the residents of Coimbatore and motorists to try their best to avoid using the Avanashi Road, as far as possible.
However, the road would be open for people to use for essential purposes, he said.Owing to traffic, the agencies were now able to work at full pace only at night. After the poles and transformers, even the centre median was being removed to ensure straight alignment and to create space for the new concrete median that forms part of the project.Mr.Shanmugananthan told The Hindu that around 80 workers had been pressed into service for removing the lamp poles and Electricity Board line poles to the extreme round boundary.Of the 640 lamp poles and 49 transformers, Electricity Board officials and workers had removed close to 40 per cent of them by Thursday evening, Mr.Shanmugananthan said.
