East Coast Road


State Highway 49, also known as East Coast Road, is a two-lane highway in Tamil Nadu, India, built along the coast of the Bay of Bengal connecting Tamil Nadu's state capital city Chennai with Cuddalore via Pondicherry. The East Coast Road has been extended up to Kanyakumari via Chidambaram, Sirkali, Akkur, Tharangambadi, Karaikal, Nagore, Nagapattinam, Thiruthuraipoondi, Muthupet, Adirampattinam, Pattukkottai Manora, Manamelkudi, Mimisal, Ramanathapuram, Koodankulam, Thoothukudi. The total length of the road is about 800 km between Chennai and Kanyakumari.
The highway is a state highway maintained by the Government of Tamil Nadu under the Department of Highways and Minor Ports. It was a two-lane state highway, and has been partially upgraded to four-lane divided highway.
The Chennai neighbourhoods on ECR are Thiruvanmiyur, Kottivakkam, Palavakkam, Neelankarai, Injambakkam, Panaiyur, Uthandi, Muttukadu, Covelong and Vilambur.

History

Prior to its completion, the East Coast Road mainly consisted of village roads. The connecting link then was the Old Mahabalipuram Road till Mahabalipuram. Pondicherry was reached from Chennai through the still existent route via Tambaram, Tindivanam along NH45. In 2000, the State government signed a concessionaire agreement with the TNRDC in order to improve the road, at a cost of Indian rupee| 60 crore. The 113-km long stretch from Akkarai to Pondicherry, dotted with resorts and beach houses, became a toll facility in March 2002 and was upgraded into a two-lane road from a small winding road passing through 154 villages.
In 2010, TNRDC announced that toll collections had reached an all-time high at 1.08 crore in December 2009 against the 54.67 lakh collected in April 2002 when toll operations started.

Four laning ECR

The ECR starts at Thiruvanmiyur in Chennai and is a part of the Chennai City roads till Uthandi. From Uthandi starts the beachway section starts as a toll road. The speed of the vehicles on this road is restricted to a maximum of 80 km/h. The State Government upgraded most of East Coast Road to a four lane divided, open access highway by 2015.
The ECR was made a toll road in April 2002. The ECR till Hanumanthai near Pondicherry is 113.2 km long and has a total of 22 bends. On an average 10,000 passenger car units use the road during rush hour and a total of 40,000 PCUs daily, up from about 5,000 daily before the construction of the road. The process of acquiring land for widening the 11.4-km stretch from Thiruvanmiyur to Akkarai covering six revenue villages, which is under the control of the Highways Department, is under way. The stretch currently has width varying between 50 ft and 80 ft. After widening at a sanctioned cost of 3,540 million, the stretch would be uniformly wide and would have six lanes, a 1.2-m-wide median, footpath-cum-stormwater drain. ECR extends up to Hanumanthai. On the way to Hanumanthai, a famous location Marakkanam is situated. On the ECR road right side famous Bhoomiswarar Temple is situated. It is believed that Sri Bhoomiswara is the God for Bhoomi, hence, many perform pooja before buying land placing the sale agreement on His holy feet. Hence real estate promoters also rush to this location.

Places of interest