Work on the second phase of the Seaport-Airport road is gathering steam, with the rains receding and the contract being already awarded for Section B that falls between Mahilalayam and Chowara.
The road will be extended up to the airport in phase two.
Site clearance work is nearing completion and piling is about to begin on Aluvathuruthu, a riverine island near Aluva, from where a bridge will be built over Thoombathodu, a branch of the Periyar. The bridge on the island will be one of the two over the Periyar and will form a major part of the extended Seaport-Airport Road between HMT Road and Nedumbasserry.
The piling work had been delayed by heavy rains in June and July and reports that the Idukki dam might be opened as the water level reached 98 per cent of the storage capacity in late September. However, with the threat of rain abating, work is expected to gather pace.
Approximately 14 km between HMT and Nedumbassery form the second phase of the Seaport-Airport Road. The stretch has been divided into three sections.
Section A lies between Kalamassery and Mahilalayam on the Aluva-Perumbavoor Road; Section B is between Mahilalayam and Chowara on the Aluva-Kalady Road and Section C is between Chowara and the Cochin International Airport.
Section A has again been sub-divided into three reaches to help launch the work. Work on the reach between Kalamassery and NAD has taken off with the land acquisition notification being already issued.
Government has sanctioned Rs. 97 crore for acquisition of around 30 acres for the four-lane road. The other reaches under Section A are NAD-Ashokapuram and Ashokapuram-Mahilalayam.
The second phase of the road work is estimated to cost over Rs. 660 crore of which about Rs. 400 crore will go into land acquisition.
Four-laning
The government has given administrative sanction for the release of Rs. 25 crore for beginning four-laning work between Irumbanam and HMT Road, which formed the first phase of the Seaport-Airport Road project.
Tender for the section between HMT Road and Bharat Mata College has been awarded and survey works are in progress.
The work may suffer a little delay on account of the presence of a large number of crucial pipelines that runs along the Seaport-Airport Road.
These include a water pipeline to BPCL’s Kochi Refinery and the oil company’s aviation turbine fuel line.
Roads and Bridges Development Corporation of Kerala (RBDCK) which is executing the work, is learnt to have submitted a proposal for Rs. 212 crore for completion of the four-laning work.
