A major portion of the 133-km-long Chennai Peripheral Ring Road (CPRR) running from Ennore Port to Poonjeri, near Mamallapuram, is expected to be completed by the end of 2025. Sources in the Highways Department said work had made good progress on the 30.8-km stretch from Tiruvallur Bypass to Sriperumbudur.
One of the contractors on the stretch, L&T, which began the work in August 2021, has completed 79% of it and is sticking to the schedule to finish its portion of the six-lane wide road. The other company, SPK Ltd, too is catching up and has completed around 50%.
Section 4 from Sriperumbudur to Singaperumalkoil has already been completed. “As part of the project proposal, we have to provide two-lane wide service lanes for the entire length of the road for use by local traffic. This has to be built in this stretch and the land acquisition for this is on. Since lands belonging to a reserved forest falls in the alignment, the proposal for swapping the land is being processed,” explained an official.
As far as the 27.41 km-long section 5 from Singaperumalkoil to Mamallapuram is concerned, land acquisition is at an advanced stage. This stretch is the last to commence since financial tie up took time. Tenders are to be floated for this stretch soon. Earlier, it had been proposed to keep this stretch as a four-lane facility. However, it has now been upgraded to six lane width. Section 1 from Ennore port to Thatchur, which has 12 tanks and heavy power transmission lines to shift, will take some time to complete. due to the nature of the stretch.
The peripheral road on completion will perhaps be the first access-controlled road of the Highways department in the city. It will connect the NH 5 (Chennai – Tada), NH4 (Chennai – Bengaluru), and NH 45 (Chennai – Tiruchi) and the East Coast Road.
