The widening of two-lane into four-lane bypasses at eight different locations on the Salem-Ulundurpet National Highway would be completed by 2023-24, said Union road transport and highways ministerNitin Gadkari.
He said the concessionaire already provided necessary road safety and traffic calming measures like road signs, blinkers, bollards, road markings at divergent/ convergent locations, high mast lightings at major junctions and streetlights at built-up areas as per the concession agreement. He promised that additional requirements would be reviewed through a safety consultant and work would be taken up separately.
In a letter to Gadkari in September,Anbumanipointed out that only 97.37 km of the 136km-stretch of Salem-Ulundurpet NH was four-lane while the rest 38.99km was two-lane. He said speeding commuters fail to negotiate the sudden change in the number of lanes in the highway resulting in frequent fatal accidents. He said 1,036 people were killed in accidents on the highway in the last 11 years, between 2011 and 2022.