Union Minister of Road Transport & Highways Nitin Gadkari said the work on Chennai Port to Maduravoyal corridor, the proposed 20.5 Km double-decker highway in Tamil Nadu’s capital will be completed by December 2024.
The Rs 5800-crore project will be completed by December 2024, and it will serve as a dedicated freight corridor for Chennai-bound port traffic, increasing the handling capacity of Chennai Port by 48% and subsequently reducing the waiting time at the port by 6 hours, Gadkari said.
The proposed elevated stretch of 20.5 km will be developed in 4 sections and will start inside the Chennai Port and end after the Maduravoyal interchange, Gadkari said in a series of tweets on Monday.
The project under the government’s flagship logistics Gati Shakti scheme will provide seamless multimodal connectivity to the port.
As per reports, the tenders for the construction of the corridor were called June 2022. The project was inaugurated by PM Narendra Modi in 2012 but got stalled due to a legal row between the Water Resources Department and the National Highways Authority of India. With the intention to break the deadlock, Gadkari had been trying for an out-of-court settlement since 2016.
Larsen & Toubro gave submitted an initial Detailed Report Project in 2019 to revive the project but Gadkari asked the company to rework the project as a double-decker elevated corridor.
PM Narendra Modi the foundation stone of the project in 2022.
