: Work on the remaining 8.3-km phase-2 portion of the Kollam bypass to the National Highway 66 has come to a standstill, making it difficult for the contractors to achieve the much-hyped November 2017 target for the completion of the project. Hurdles to procuring gravel for the road formation is the reason cited for disruption of work.
Top executives of RDS-CVCC (JV), the company that has taken up the work contract, said only a Cabinet decision granting the project a special status can now enable smooth supply of gravel so as to complete the work at least by mid-2018. This is due to the fact that gravel requirement for the project continues to be placed under the buildings permit category.
Phase-2 of the work is 8.3 km from Kavanad to Kallumthazham comprising three bridges, one of which will be almost 900 metres. Work on the project was inaugurated by Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari in March 2015. The 4.3-km Mevaram-Kallumthazham phase-1 stretch had been commissioned and thrown open to traffic.
While the preliminary work on the project began in March 2015, the road-laying began by October. Management coordinator of the project Anoop Damaodaran told The Hindu that while the gravel requirement for the entire project was 1,80,000 cubic metres only 40,000 cubic metres could be procured so far.
Though properties for sourcing gravel had been identified, restrictions to transport gravel were creating hurdles. Since the past one month, no gravel permit has been granted for the project. This has resulted in a good number of skilled migrant workers brought by the contractors to the site being sent back because they had remained idle for close to a month.
Initially, the whole gravel requirement for the project was identified from a 10-acre high terrain on the Navodaya School campus near Kottarakara.
The idea was to create a vast playground on the campus and use the gravel generated from there for the bypass project. But that required special sanction for felling more than 300 trees.
