Chennai-Salem highway: NHAI seeks TN help

Chennai-Salem highway: NHAI seeks TN help

Wants To Finish Social Impact Study

Julie.Mariappan@timesgroup.com

Chennai:24.12.2021

The National Highways Authority of India has sought to revive the stuck Chennai-Salem greenfield expressway by urging the state government to issue directions to district collectors of Salem, Dharmapuri, Tiruvannamalai and Kancheepuram to cooperate for completion of social impact assessment study and preparation of environment impact assessment report for the project.

The central agency, so far, has not received any written communication from the state government to drop the project, sources said.

The Supreme Court in December last had upheld the notification for acquisition of land for the ₹10,000 crore green corridor project and directed the NHAI to get environmental clearance for the project before carrying out land acquisition. “To get the environmental clearance, the Union environment ministry has suggested that studies have to be carried out on the field for which the state government’s cooperation is required. It is not forthcoming despite a communique to the top state government officials recently,” said an NHAI official.

The NHAI has to do a comprehensive socio-economic assessment with emphasis on the impact of ongoing land acquisition on the locals living around the proposed alignment. An assessment of impact on local biodiversity, wildlife corridors and its mitigation strategy, including baseline generation, wildlife movement, and identification of corridors along 277.3km corridor has been completed by the department of environmental science and engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Dhanbad. Similarly, Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Natural History, Coimbatore, completed an ecosystem study.

In a related development, Union minister for road transport Nitin Gadkari had told Rajya Sabha last week that the project would be completed by 2025. “NHAI has appointed M/s KITCO (a Kerala government undertaking) to carry out the socio-economic study. After completion of this study, the environmental impact assessment report has to be prepared and submitted to the pollution control board to hold public hearings,” said the official. None of the collectors have responded yet.

Meanwhile, sources said chief minister M K Stalin in his memorandum presented to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in June, had requested the Centre to drop the project.