Work on widening the Nagapattinam – Thanjavur National Highway has been taken up by the National Highways Authority of India. The picture shows one of the stretches widened near Tiruvarur.
| Photo Credit: M. SRINATH
The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) would soon build a bypass road around Tiruvarur town on the Thanjavur-Nagapattinam National Highway.
The bypass road would be built at an investment of about ₹627 crore. It will run for a distance of about 15-km from Thandalai to Adiyakkamangalam, sources in the NHAI told The Hindu.
The NHAI has already floated a tender inviting bids for the project to be executed on hybrid annuity mode on design, build, operate and transfer basis.
Although the bypass was originally envisaged as part of the strengthening of the Thanjavur-Nagapattinam NH executed a few years ago, the work was not taken up as the land acquisition was not complete then.
“The land acquisition has been completed now. The tender will be awarded within the next few months and the work is expected to be completed within two years,” the sources said.
The two-lane Thanjavur-Nagapattinam NH section was strengthened in recent years. The project, initially sanctioned at an estimated cost of ₹396 crore, dragged on for several years after the concessionaire abandoned it after executing it just for short distance. Subsequently, NHAI awarded a fresh contract to complete the balance works on 65.37-km at an estimated cost of ₹340.63 crore and it has been completed since.
The nearly 80-km long highway runs across the Cauvery delta region, connecting major tourist destinations such as Thanjavur, Tiruvarur, Velankanni and Nagore, and attracts a huge volume of traffic round the year. Widening the road, dotted with curves and criss-crossing watercourses, was vital to improving road safety and checking accidents, locals contend.
The strengthening of the road has helped significantly reduce the travel time between Thanjavur and Nagapattinam; the four-laning and the construction of a bypass road for Tiruvarur would further bring down the travel time, officials said.
The NHAI is also in the process of preparing a Detailed Project Report for four-laning the NH section. The Tiruvarur bypass will be a four-lane road to meet future requirements, the source added.
Published – September 03, 2025 04:28 pm IST
