Roadblocks cleared; Thammanam-Pullepady stretch widening soon

KOCHI: Finally, hurdles have been cleared for the much-discussed widening of Thammanam-Pullepady road with Local Self-Government Department (LSGD) all set to hand over the stretch to the Public Works Department for completing the project.The decision will be a boon to city residents who have been looking for a congestion-free stretch to reach MG Road from the national highway. Confirming this to TNIE, T K Jose, Principal Secretary, LSGD, said an agreement would be signed between the department and PWD to hand over the widening of the stretch. “Procedures to hand over the Thammanam- Pullepady Road to PWD have almost reached the final stage. If all goes as per plan, the ownership of the land will be handed to the PWD without much delay,” said Jose. 

He also said the public works minister had expressed willingness to take over the land from the corporation. “So far, there is no objection from the PWD to take over the project. Since it is a big project it cannot be included in the normal budget. So, fund from Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB) will be used for developing the stretch. The finance minister has also promised to release KIIFB fund for the purpose,” he added.

Meanwhile, Hibi Eden, MP, also said the project would materialise soon. “With the help of MLAs, we are putting immense pressure on the state government to restart the project which got stalled for several years. As a part of it, the LSGD secretary, who is going to assume charge as the PWD secretary, informed us that steps would be taken to make the project a reality,” Hibi said. 

As per the earlier study, widening the Thammanam-Pullepady stretch to 22 m was expected to incur an expense of nearly `263 crore, including the cost for acquiring 4.01 hectares. It was designed to be developed in two phases - from MG Road to NH 66 and from there to Infopark. Based on this KITCO had submitted a detailed project report for the 4.06-km-long second phase. The proposed four-lane road will incur a total cost of `412 crore. The UDF government had allotted `25 crore for the preliminary work on the stretch and with this, `13.5 crore was spent on land acquisition from Kathrikadavu to Karanakodam.

The district administration had informed the High Court that altogether 94 persons had surrendered their land free of cost and the extent so surrendered was 1.1934 hectares. However, in a report filed by the district collector on February 12 as a response to the contempt of court case in the HC, the extent of land required for the widening of  Thammanam-Pullepady Road was 3.5579 hectares and the cost of acquisition would come to `379.35 crore. Interestingly, the collector also pointed out that the government did not receive any land surrendered for free.