A road blockade by irate villagers near Sanjeevi Nagar in the wake of the closure of the old Cauvery bridge brought traffic to a standstill on the busy Chennai-Tiruchi-Madurai National Highway and parts of the city for over two hours on Saturday forenoon.

Residents of Sarkarpalayam and other villages along the Cauvery banks resorted to agitation against the closure of an access way to their villages from the Sanjeevi Nagar Junction even as the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) began repair work on the old Cauvery bridge, built in 1963. The bridge was closed for traffic on June 25.

“With the closure of the access route via Sanjeevi Nagar junction, we have been forced to take a detour up to Palpannai, much to the hardship of school, college students and office goers,” said one of the protesters.

The villagers pressed their long-pending demand for the construction of a vehicular underpass across the highway at Sanjeevi Nagar Junction. Although the NHAI has floated a tender, the work is yet to begin.

The protest, which began around 9 a.m., choked traffic on the national highway and around Chinthamani, Srirangam, and Cauvery bridge in the city. As traffic piled up on either sides of the highways, senior Revenue and police officials held talks with the protesters. But as the protesters refused to disperse, the police took a section of them into custody and removed the others from the spot, clearing the highway for traffic.

Abrupt closure

The rather abrupt closure of the Cauvery bridge on one of the two carriageways on the busy national highway has drawn the ire of motorists and road safety activists too. Neither the NHAI nor the district administration came out with a formal announcement on the closure of the bridge and the alternative arrangements made, they said.

As the bridge caters to traffic on one direction (Tiruchi-Chennai), traffic has been diverted through the bridge on the other carriageway. Temporary bollards have been installed to demarcate the carriageway for two-way traffic between Sanjveevi Nagar Junction and Kondayampettai. Yet, traffic has come to a crawl with motorists complaining that it took at least 25-30 minutes to cross over this nearly two-km long stretch of the highway.

While NHAI sources said the repairs on the bridge would be completed within three months, activists are wary of possible delays such as the monsoon and water flow in the river. They point out that the repairs taken up on the overbridge near Golden Rock a couple of years ago had dragged on for several months.

NHAI sources said that the repair was planned much earlier but was delayed due to the intervening Assembly election. The bridge, built 63 years ago, needed urgent repairs which could no longer be postponed. The repairs, taken up at an estimate of nearly ₹10 crore, would involve replacing 120 bearings and the expansion joints on the structure, the sources said.

“There seems to be a lack of proper planning; better arrangements could have been made to divert traffic at various places on the highway. Already, the Palpannai junction is facing a severe congestion,” said Shivasankar Sekaran, a resident of Palpannai. However, he appreciated the city police for deploying a posse of police personnel to regulate traffic on the stretch and hoped it would continue.

“Traffic in several parts of the city have been affected due to the on going construction of overbridges near the Town and Fort railway stations,” pointed out P. Ayyarappan, a road safety activist calling for better planning in infrastructure development and the expeditious construction of the semi-ring roads around the city.