A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Monday criticised the Goshree Islands Development Authority (GIDA) and the State government for their half-hearted efforts to construct the Moolampilly-Pizhala bridge.
The Bench headed by Chief Justice Hrishikesh Roy wondered how the GIDA and the State government could have visualised the construction of the bridge without making provisions for acquiring land for approach roads and connection of the bridge at both ends. Such half-hearted efforts would surely affect the work so far and were not going to meet the aspirations of the people expecting the bridge to be made available for public use without further loss of time.
The GIDA has been directed to inform the court on when the agency will meet and take urgent decisions regarding the bridge. The court passed the directive when a slew of public interest litigations on the bridge came up for hearing.
When the petitions were taken up, the counsel for the construction company pointed out that 90% of the work had been completed. However, administrative sanction had not been granted for connecting the bridge at both ends. Land was yet to be acquired for the construction of the approach road from Pizhala. It would delay the commissioning of the bridge as land acquisition was a time-consuming process.
GIDA meeting
The court noted that the GIDA had not met for the past two years. It asked the State Attorney to inform how soon the GIDA would meet and take a call on the bridge and other related development works.
Work on the bridge was taken up by the GIDA as part of developing infrastructure on the islands around Ernakulam. The work was seriously affected when two girders of the under-construction bridge collapsed in March 2017. The demand for the Moolapally-Pizhala bridge was raised as early as 2004, during the inauguration of the Goshree bridges linking Vypeen, Vallarpadam and Mulavukad to Ernakulam.
