The Hindu : Kerala News : Work on State Highway yet to begin

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Sunday, May 01, 2005

Kerala

Kerala

Work on State Highway yet to begin

Anand Haridas

KOCHI: The stretch of the coastal road from Thoppumpady to Arthunkal in Alappuzha was notified as a State Highway in June last, but the residents along the sides of the road complain that nothing has happened so far.

"The survey of the road has been completed and work will begin by next year, I believe. Works like strengthening of the seawall and rebuilding some of the bridges along this route are progressing," said Dominic Presentation, Minister for Fisheries and Sports, who represents Palluruthy Assembly constituency, on Saturday.

The stretch of road, though set along the picturesque coastal villages, is the first one to be flooded during high tides. "After the notification no work has been taken up along the road, nothing even to solve the water-logging," said E.P. Joseph of Chellanam, one of the areas touched by the State Highway.

This 52.23-km road is the second one in the district, along with Vypeen-Pallipuram road, to feature in the list of State Highways notified last year. Other major district roads included in the State Highway project under the Kerala Highway Protection Act, 1999 were Guruvayur-Althara-Ponnani road (28.6 km), Varkala-Parippally-Madathara road (44.59 km), Parappanangadi-Aruacode road (42.5 km), Mannarakalanji-Pamba road (60 km) and Kappad-Thusharagiri-Adivaram road (67 km).

While Mr. Presentation claims that the southern parts of the road have been repaired, the locals disagree.

"The maintenance work of the road was done a couple of years back, not to mention the widening of it. Even where the road was tarred again, the contractor left without doing proper banking. Also, the seawall is missing for 300 metres here," said Karunakaran of Kadakkarassery near Andakaranazhi.

The spillway at Andakaranazhi is a major bottleneck in the development of the road. Motorists have to use two narrow bridges at this spillway. "We have not worked out anything for solving the bottleneck at Andakaranazhi. This will be taken up in the next phase only," Mr. Presentation said.

When completed, the road is expected take a considerable load off National Highway 47, which is parallel to the coastal road. "The new road will help in the promotion of tourism ventures in the region," Mr. Presentation said.

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