For maintaining and managing its roads at par with global standards, Tamil Nadu government is to form Tamil Nadu State Highways Authority (TNSHA) on the lines of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI).
The formation of the Authority will be followed by entrusting major State Highways to the TNSHA, said the State Finance Minister O Panneerselvam while presenting the State Budget.
While the formation of TNSHA was greeted by road experts, they cautioned that more roads are likely to come under the toll system in the future.
According to them, major roads and those facing huge traffic volume would be developed on public-private-partnership mode and the contractor would be allowed to recover his investment through the toll system. On the other hand, port users expressed dismay over the State governmentÂ’s silence on the progress of North Port Access Road and North Chennai Thermal Power Station Road that are going to be the crucial link to two ports in North Chennai.
Panneerselvam said the State government was taking steps to upgrade and strengthen roads in a phased manner. About 168 km of State Highways will be widened from intermediate lane to double lane and 1,000 km of major district roads would be widened from single lane to intermediate lane during the year under the Comprehensive Road Infrastructure Development Programme (CRIDP).
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