Thoothukudi Corporation discusses about making roads safer; No action plan revealed for encroachment, ramp eviction

Mayor N. P. Jegan addressing the development works meeting at Thoothukudi Corporation office on Tuesday. | Photo Credit: N. RAJESH Even as hundreds of encroachments along busy roads in this port town continue to hamper vehicular movement, the Corporation held a meeting on Tuesday to discuss measures to streamline traffic by improving roads and making them safer.Addressing the meeting, Corporation Commissioner C. Priyanka said there was an urgent need to improve infrastructure to ensure hassle-free movement of vehicles in the town.Mayor Jegan Periyasamy said the Corporation was committed to creating eco-friendly and sustainable traffic facilities in the coastal town, which attracted a few thousand vehicles every day, with the V.O.C. Port being the fulcrum of its growing economy. With the steady increase in the number of vehicles, the Corporation had to take immediate steps to cope with the growth, he said.As pollution was a major concern amid growing vehicular traffic and industrial activity, the shift towards electric vehicles should be encouraged, Mr. Jegan said.The meeting discussed road works to be taken up in Thoothukudi, traffic regulation and planning, improving coordination among various stakeholder departments to ensure safe, healthy and hassle-free roads, and the provision of pedestrian paths.Senior officials from the Thoothukudi Corporation and the Departments of Highways, TWAD Board, Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation, Town and Country Planning and Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation participated in the meeting.However, the meeting did not set any timeframe for making the roads in Thoothukudi, particularly the busy stretches, free of encroachments.Roads from Third Mile to Old Harbour, Victoria Extension Road from the State Bank on Beach Road to the District Court Complex, the road connecting Fourth Gate and Mattakkadai, the road between Vattakkovil and WGC Road via Second Gate, and the road connecting VVD Signal and KTC Nagar are among the stretches affected by permanent and temporary structures. The Corporation has not undertaken any sustained drive to remove the encroachments.The situation on interior roads is worse, with hundreds of trenches cut for laying drinking water pipelines and ramps constructed in front of houses occupying a sizeable portion of the roads. These have narrowed the roads and increased the risk of accidents.Though the Thoothukudi Corporation passed a resolution at its council meeting on October 30, 2023, to remove all such ramps, no action has been taken to implement it.“We will soon evolve an action plan and initiate a sustained drive to remove all encroachments and ramps,” a senior official said after the meeting when asked about the issue. Published - September 22, 2026 07:48 pm IST