Delay in bridge construction affects smooth progress of Parvathy Puthanar revamp

Thiruvananthapuram: Parvathy Puthanar, which had long remained stagnant and infested with weeds, now resembles a waterbody with a smooth flow; however establishing a navigational channel along the canal is likely to get longer than expected. Kerala waterways and infrastructure limited (KWIL), which transported nearly 500 loads of waste and silt from the canal between Akkulam and Vallakadavu to enable a trial run of a boat, is now waiting for the completion of bridge construction at two places to continue the work.
In a recent review meeting convened by chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, the public works department has been directed to complete constructing the bridge at Perunelli by December 2019 and the bridge at Vallakadavu by March 2020. The delay in completing the bridge has forced KWIL to do the cleaning repeatedly. “Unless the bund at Perunelli is opened, we cannot undertake any more cleaning towards the southern end. Now, we are employing manual labour to scoop up water weeds that keep surfacing. Machines also had to be deployed in areas that were earlier cleared of weeds and silt,” a project official said.
Around 2,000 tons of accumulated silt and trash had to be removed from Parvathy Puthanar in the past five months to increase the depth of the canal by 1.5 metres as part of the project to re-establish navigational channel between Kovalam and Akkulam. The officials are planning to run a six-seater outboard motor engine on a regular basis from next week onwards. Prior to the review meeting, the officials had successfully conducted trial run of a boat along the cleaned stretch of Parvathy Puthanar.
A 25-30 seater solar boat that is under construction will be launched in March 2020. Before that, the remaining work will have to be completed and officials are pinning hopes on proper co-ordination among departments.
KWIL has made use of the most advanced machinery such as silt pusher, shredder machine and amphibious harvester to deal with kinds of waste that had to be cleared from the canal. The amphibious harvester was mainly used to remove the water weeds and hyacinth. The canal needs to be cleaned for a distance of 18.5km.
Establishing navigational channel from Kovalam to Akkulam forms part of a major project to revamp inland waterways transport which will run up to Kottapuram, Thrissur. Once the channel is made till Akkulam, it would be connected to Kollam from where the channel will form part of national waterways. This is being done to enhance transport of goods, tourism facilities and ferry service along Parvathy Puthanar.