High-level meeting to get Porur flyover construction back on track

The State Highways Department is preparing to hold a high-level meeting to try and revive the stalled Porur Flyover project. The meeting is aimed at bringing various stakeholders in the project together to try find a solution to the logjam.

The meeting is expected to see the participation of Highways Minister Edappadi K Palaniswamy, Municipal Administration Minister KP Munusamy and Chennai Mayor Saidai S Duraisamy, apart from high-ranking officials of the concerned departments. The presence of the honchos of the stakeholder departments is expected to help muscle through a solution to the troubled flyover project.

The Porur flyover has been dogged by one delay after the other ever since it was envisioned. Construction on the project began in April 2010 and little progress was made at snail's pace, before the project came to a complete standstill a year ago. While the initial phase of the construction was carried out by the Highways Department, work was stalled to allow Chennai Metro Water to relay its drinking water pipelines and make space for pillars for the flyover.

It is this work that has held up the project, as Metro Water is unable to find contractors to take up the pipeline relaying work. Two tenders called earlier for the work failed. One tender call failed to attract even a single bidder, while the other saw two bidders quoting very high margins. Sources at Chennai Metro Water have told City Express that they expect the current tender also to fail. This promises to delay the project by a minimum of six to eight more months.

"The idea of holding the meeting of all the stakeholder departments in the presence of the two Ministers, the Mayor and secretaries is to arrive at a quick solution to the problem. Given the kind of authorities who are going to sit in on the meeting, we can even expect the logjam to be cleared in the course of just one meeting," a highly-placed official in the Highways Department told City Express.

More such meetings would be held where and when necessary, to ensure speedy completion of other stalled projects across the State. "A number of projects have been left hanging from the previous administration. Some of them have run into genuine problems, like the Porur Flyover, while others have fallen prey to poor practices. We have to solve these issues and get these projects moving. The Porur flyover is a priority now, and we will hold similar meetings if necessary for other projects," Highways Minister Edappadi K Palaniswamy told City Express.