The proposal to demolish the city bus terminal at East Fort and remove the shops hugging the fort wall to the north and south of the entrance leading to the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple for the restoration of the heritage structure seems to have been shelved.
Instead of evicting the 30-odd shops near the fort wall, the government has given administrative sanction to Kerala Tourism’s proposal to construct a Rs.2-crore tourist arrival centre-cum-bus waiting shelter. Steel Industries Kerala Ltd. had been asked to complete the works in 12 months using budget provision, official sources told The Hindu . It would be adjusted against the Central fund of Rs.100 crore granted for improving the temple infrastructure.
Urban and transport planners have expressed surprise at the decision as the Detailed Project Report approved by the government for the City Road Improvement Project (CRIP) was to demolish the bus shelters and create bus bays. The present move is to replace the roof structure of the dilapidated 100-metre bus shelter. This has raised questions about the fate of the Rs.30-crore three-storey commercial complex and bus shelter planned by the Thiruvananthapuram Development Authority’s on two acres of land on the premises of Government Central School, Attakulangara. “Once the new bus shelters come up at East Fort, the greens will oppose the TRIDA project. One should not forget the number of road users getting caught in traffic and being killed on the Pazhavangady-Attakulangara stretch,” says a transport planner.
The widened Pazhavangady-East Fort-Attakulangara stretch can accommodate six-lane traffic. At the initiative of District Collector Biju Prabhakar, the median was relocated by the Kerala Road Fund Board. As many as 22 buses can stop here at a time now.
Anil Kumar Pandala, Managing Director of Thiruvananthapuram Road Development Company Ltd., the concessionaire of CRIP, said the decision would defeat the purpose of giving a facelift to East Fort and evicting shops.
“We were asked to concrete the floor of the existing bus shelters,” he added.
