Traders being evicted from the Thakaraparambu road and the Pazhavangady-Attakulangara stretch for completing work under the City Road Improvement Project (CRIP) will be temporarily rehabilitated on the premises of the Vanchi Poor Fund at Overbridge.
The temporary rehabilitation is being taken up at the initiative of the Thiruvananthapuram Development Authority (TRIDA) as the move to shift them to the Government Central School premises at Attukalangara is dragging on, delaying work on the Melepazhavangady flyover.
Sixty shops will be constructed on nine cents of land on the Vanchi Poor Fund premises. TRIDA and the Kerala Road Fund Board will bear the cost for building the shops. Official sources told The Hindu that the charitable organisation would get over Rs.2 lakh as income by providing land for setting up the shops. As the shops would be permanent structures, the organisation could later lease them out to generate income.
The new spot identified is in addition to the temporary shops that had been constructed on the Pazhavangady-Central Theatre-Power House road. The government has already given the nod for building a shopping complex on the school premises to rehabilitate the 75 traders being evicted for the construction of the flyover and another 50 traders for widening the Pazhavangady-Attakkulangara road.
Work on the flyover is in full swing. Project official said sofit (base) concreting of two spans in the three span group on the Power House Road side would be taken up in a couple of days. The slab casting would take 30 days.
The third span on the Power House road side will be taken up only after the one across the arterial road is completed. For this, the traders in the locality will have to be shifted and rehabilitated. This had forced the authorities to select the temporary location.
The busy Pazhavangady-East Fort-Attakulangara stretch is to be widened and reconstructed to accommodate six-lane traffic.
Demolishing the city bus terminal and removing the shops hugging the fort wall to the north and south of the entrance will give the much-needed restoration to the fort wall that is a heritage structure.
Project officials said road development work could be taken up only if the shops were evicted. The much-needed restoration of the cross drain leading from Pazhavangady to Thekkanamkara drainage canal could be taken up only after that.
A 240-metre long drain has to be constructed. The choked drain is believed to be the primary cause for flooding in the East Fort area.
