The Deccan Chronicle  16.11.2010

Chennai, Nov. 15: Korattur residents who have put up with crowded railway level-crossings for several years can now heave a sigh of relief with the Ambattur municipality giving the go-ahead for the construction of a new subway there.

But, on the other hand, the petition of Korattur’s neighbourhood locality, Ambattur, is yet to find any official support.

When contacted, Ambattur municipal commissioner Ashish Kumar said. “The Ambattur level crossing at Karukku (LC6) is still in the planning stage. We will be giving the Korattur (LC4) subway a no-objection certificate soon, but no such project is being executed at Karukku.”

“During peak hours, it takes nearly 30-45 minutes to cross the tracks. And the traffic jam develops into a 1-km-long jam. This is not a new problem. The authorities should have taken up a project to construct a subway here long ago,” says Mr Raja Babu, who commutes from Ambattur to Guindy every day.

Not only commuters, but also Lok Sabha MP T.K.S. Elangovan had raised the demand for two subways in Ambattur and Korattur during the 2010 budget session of Parliament.

“We have inspected the Karukku level-crossing area. Railway over bridges (ROB) are there on both sides of the level-crossing, but pedestrians rarely use the ROBs. So we are also planning to construct a subway there which can also be used by two-wheelers,” said Mr S. Anantharaman, divisional railway manager (Chennai).

He agrees that constructing an underpass/subway at railway crossings will ease traffic and surely reduce the threat of freak mishaps. “It cannot happen overnight. We will moot the proposal next year and hopefully execute it in 2011-2012,” he adds.