A wide road to link West Velachery and East Velachery has been a demand of residents for decades. But it is yet to materialise, mainly because of encroachments.
West Velachery, located between Adambakkam and East Velachery, has wide interior roads. It has become a prominent residential locality comprising AGS Colony, Mahalakshmi Nagar, Andal Nagar, and Lakshmi Nagar. However, to access the Information Technology Corridor (Rajiv Gandhi Salai) and Adyar, the residents have to go through narrow lanes. A speedy and easy access is what they want.
A detour to reach Bypass Road
The formation of the southern arm of the Inner Ring Road extension has created a proper access to the Velachery railway station through Sakthi Nagar Main Road. But residents have to take a detour to reach the Bypass Road.
S. Manoharan, a resident of Andal Nagar, says that unlike Velachery and Madipakkam where broad roads have helped in easy and proper access, the residents of West Velachery suffer from poor connectivity. As a result, they do not have adequate public transport: they have to go to St. Thomas Mount railway station for taking a suburban train or to the Bypass Road at Velachery for boarding a Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) bus.
The reason for the absence of a wide access road is the narrowing down of the MGR Nagar 2nd Main Road and the AGS Colony 4th Main Road owing to encroachment by residents and commercial establishments. Hundreds of residents bound for the Bypass Road have to pass through the narrow and congested MGR Nagar 2nd Main Road, 3rd Main Road, and Venkateswara Nagar Road.
Reduced width
A. Joshna, a resident of AGS Colony 6th Cross Street, says all these roads are marked as main roads but their width is less than 30 feet. The MTC authorities cite the narrow roads as the reason for not operating buses. The MTC now operates buses to various destinations from AGS Colony, but a proper access to East Velachery will help to create more bus routes.
Several residents of MGR Nagar 2nd Main Road have encroached on the road by setting up shops years ago, and it has become hard for the Corporation to remove them.
A senior official of the Corporation says the residents were directed to remove the encroachments, but they went to the Madras High Court and got a stay on the order.
