EMRIP project to miss June 2013 deadline: officials

C Shivakumar

Chennai:

Chennai Port Road Connectivity project will fail to meet the June 2013 deadline set by Union Shipping Minister G K Vasan as the work of laying the road is affected due to traffic and unauthorized parking of trucks along the Manali Oil Refinery Road (MORR) and Inner Ring Road (IRR), according to Chennai Port Trust and National Highways Authority of India.

I G Reddy, NHAI Chief General Manager (Technical), Tamil Nadu and Kerala, told Express on the sidelines of the 3rd Southern region Shipping conclave here on Saturday that the ongoing works at the 30 km stretch of formerly Ennore-Manali Road Improvement Project (EMRIP) will fail to meet the deadline of June 2013 as the work is progressing at a snail’s pace due to trucks being parked along the stretch.

“These trucks are being parked 24X7 making it difficult to work on the stretch. We have taken up the issue with the Chennai police as well as Chennai Port but there is no solution at sight,” said the senior NHAI official.

He said, “Arrangements should be made to have some parking space outside Chennai to park these vehicles so that we can proceed with our work. We do have funds and equipment but can’t work due to this problem.”

Interestingly, deputy chairman of Chennai Port P C Parida also accepted that these issues would affect the project but promised the project will be completed by October 2013. Currently, 40 per cent of work in the project has been finished.

Parida said discussions are on to identify 30-40 acres of land outside Chennai for parking of these trucks. But Reddy said that the issue has to be addressed soon. Meanwhile, sources stated that most of the trucks parked on the stretch using it as a parking yard. “Most of them also don’t have valid papers,” they added.

Earlier, Shipping Minister G K Vasan  inaugurated the shipping conclave and said that his ministry has set a target of creating additional capacity of 244 million metric tonnes in major ports and non-major ports.

He also said his ministry is working for formulation of new land policy as well as captive land use policy for major ports which will be transparent and will provide level playing field to all stakeholders.