Kerala has many achievements to its credit, but the State is yet to make significant progress in creating world-class road infrastructure. Only 36 km of the total 1,523.9 km, spread over nine National Highway (NH) corridors passing through the State, are four-lane and the case of maintenance and upkeep of State Highways and other roads leave much to be desired. On top of this is the grievous damage caused to roads when different agencies go about digging up newly laid stretches.
Latest incident
The latest in this series of havoc-wreaking interventions is the cutting of trenches in many newly laid roads in the capital city by a major telecom player for laying optical fibre cables (OFCs) to provide 4G services. The telecom operator managed to secure the Public Works Department (PWD)’s nod for the trench cutting stating that it would be using the latest technology, use mastic asphalt to restore the dug-up areas. How the telecom player got the clearance is the subject of much speculation in the PWD and beyond.
Varying stance
For, the government had earlier cancelled the permission given by former PWD Secretary T.O. Sooraj to the same operator for digging up the roads for laying the OFCs. The official is now facing a Vigilance investigation. Reliable sources say that the government decided to review its stand on the issue and grant speedy clearance for the trenching following intervention by a former State official who has reportedly been liaising with the government for the telecom company. The company has been having a successful run with other arms of the government as well. It had secured permission months ago to use the electric poles of KSEB Ltd. to draw aerial OFCs, paying Rs.900 a pole in rural areas and Rs.1,800 in urban areas for five years. Hitherto, the poles were being used by private cable operators and the amount collected was nominal because the cable TV industry has been giving employment to thousands across the State. In October, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL), a public sector undertaking, had approached KSEB seeking permission to use the electric poles to draw its lines, but its request was turned down. As in the case of the PWD, the former civil servant appears to have successfully used his clout in the government to get the KSEB to rethink on its decision to not permit big telecom players to use its electric poles to draw OFCs.
The Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) is under the spotlight as never before and, apparently, not without reason. For, as senior VACB investigators admit privately, it is rarely that a State’s anti-corruption agency investigates its own Law Minister on the suspicion of graft. Ever since the VACB booked Minister for Law and Finance K.M. Mani on the charge of graft in what has come to be known as the bar licence renewal bribery case, the agency has figured prominently in news, though not always for the right reasons.
VS stance
Leader of the Opposition V.S. Achuthanandan had recently described the VACB’s action in graft complaints involving Cabinet Ministers as ‘mere tokenism,’ while some leaders of the ruling front, primarily the Kerala Congress (M), have been harsh in their criticism of the VACB for targeting Ministers. They have openly questioned the legality of the agency’s decision to book Mr. Mani on suspicion of corruption in the bar case and gone on to ask why the same yardstick was not applied in the case of two Congress Ministers against whom a similar finger of suspicion was pointed by an accused through a sworn statement. In the halls of the VACB, there is ‘an increasing optimism’ that the agency would soon be relieved of the controversial investigations and would get to breathe easy as several petitions are pending in the High Court seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation inquiry into the case and related matters.
With inputs from
S. Anil Radhakrishnan and
G. Anand (Thiruvananthapuram)
