New road to Tiruttani temple planned

A detailed project report for laying a new road from atop the Tiruttani hill shrine of Lord Subramaniaswamy to the Chittoor Road is expected to be ready in a couple of weeks.

Sources in the Highways Department, which will form the 1.95-km long and 3.75 m wide ghat road on a deposit basis, said that the work was likely to commence before this year-end.

Minister for Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) P. K. Sekarbabu said that land belonging to the Revenue department, Forest department and town planning department and a private party are needed for the project that will allow vehicles from the Chittoor side to get into the hill without entering the town, which gets easily crowded.

“The temple gets around one lakh devotees on the weekends and five lakh during special days such as Kirthigai since it is one of Lord Muruga’s Arupadaiveedus. “The present road on the eastern side of the hill invariable gets congested and the new one that would come up on the western side of the hill would allow us to change traffic flow in the area and also help in free flow of traffic,” he said.

Inspection done

Officials inspected the alignment of the road a couple of days ago. “We had chosen three alignments but this was the best route. There are not many trees, only bushes and plants. The right of way would be 10 metres but road width would only be 3.75 m. Culverts, parapet and lighting would be provided as part of the work,” an engineer associated with the project said.

An official of the Tiruvallur district administration said 4.83 acres of land was required for the road and the alienation process had been set in motion.