The landmark Anna arches will not be demolished thanks to chief minister Jayalalithaa’s intervention.
A decision to this effect was taken at a review meeting chaired by the chief minister at the Secretariat on Wednesday with officials of the Highways department. The demolition work of the arches had been taken up to facilitate the construction of two flyovers at a cost of `117 crore at the junction of EVR Periyar Salai and Anna Nagar 3 Avenue.
After the meeting, Ms Jayalalithaa announced that the flyover would be constructed with some minor re-alignments without demolishing the arches.
“I have directed the officials to carry out the flyover work without demolishing the Anna arch, one of the landmarks in the city which was inaugurated by former chief minister M. G. Ramachandran in 1986,” she said in a statement.
The CM said that she had ordered the work to be stopped when she heard that the Anna arches were being demolished. She said that the arches was constructed during the tenure of Former Chief Minister M.G. Ramachandran and it was one of the landmarks of the city, occupying a prominent place in the hearts of the people, much like the fame of MGR. She added that the previous DMK government had sanctioned the Rs 117 crore-flyover project to decongest EVR Periyar Salai.
The state highways department had started its unsuccessful bid to demolish the arches on Saturday night. However, the work had been delayed after one of its diamond cutters malfunctioned and a crane operator had doubted the capacity of the machine to lift the arches.