There seems to be no end in sight to the burgeoning traffic hold-ups in and around Thripunithura and on the Kundannoor-Pettah stretch, with the three-decade-old stalemate over constructing the Thripunithura bypass set to continue.
The proposal to construct the 8-km bypass dates back to 1989. The project remained in the cold storage except for four hectares of the total 16 hectares of land being acquired, after paying what landowners termed as a pittance as compensation to them. Currently, landowners are in a quandary. They are unable to sell their land, renovate houses or build new ones since the land for the alignment remains frozen. Officials of the PWD (NH wing) said that the land acquisition cost had increased manifold during the past years. “This is among the reasons why the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has not prioritised the project. Else, the State government would have to pool in 50% of the project cost. Efforts to develop the corridor in a phased manner too have not yielded results”.
The proposed bypass passes through three parliamentary constituencies and as many Assembly constituencies. “I raised the demand to hasten the project in the Lok Sabha since the land owners are unable do any transaction of their properties. The bypass stretch would have worked wonders in developing the entire area. A Project Director of NHAI visited the area recently to assess the situation. Apart the long-overdue alignment, an alternative one through Puthencruz, located further away, is being looked into,” said Benny Behanan, MP.
Among the people affected by the inordinate delay in implementing the project is A.T. Geevarghese. “The project was initiated when I was 10 years. Now I am 40, and little has materialised,” he said, while expressing his willingness to surrender his land for the project.
Another landowner, V.G. Ambujakshan, a native of Mamala and State president of the National Federation of the Blind, said that his long wait for the bypass remained unanswered although he had surrendered over 8 cents of land and his house for the project. “I got a measly amount as compensation back then. The alignment was changed multiple times at the behest of influential people who did not want to surrender their land. This resulted in adding many curves in the alignment, despite safety hazards. Our efforts to convince PWD officials and others with the help of satellite images to carve out the alignment through alternative lands proved futile”.
Landowners were unable to modify their houses even during the wedding of their children due to the uncertainty over the project. A bypass beyond Thripunithura town would also be crucial from the safety point of view since mega industrial units such as the KRL were located close-by. The existing narrow roads were too congested, he said.
“I am unable to do anything on 60 cents of my 1 acre land that the PWD identified for acquisition for the project. The government must speed up land acquisition,” said T.C. Varghese, a resident of Sasthamukal.
Natarajan, secretary of the Thiruvankulam Action Council for Thripunithura Bypass, said that the long pending bypass was of strategic importance too since it would link Kochi, which has the Southern Naval Command and a host of other defence establishments, with Dhanushkodi through Madurai.
He cautioned against changing the alignment since it would result in motorists having to travel up to 14 km of additional distance for no reason.