DPR on Thammanam-Pullepady road development before June

Stakeholders keen to straighten curves in the corridor leading to Pullepady

A team of officials of the Kochi Corporation and the Kerala Road Fund Board (KRFB) inspected Thammanam Junction and the alignment beyond on Thursday as part of the project to widen the Thammanam-Pullepady road and extend it from either side to Chakkaraparambu on the NH Bypass and to Padma Junction on M.G. Road.

The detailed project report (DPR) for the initiative will be ready before June. It will then be forwarded to the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB), following which a meeting will be held with MLAs representing Ernakulam and Thrikkakara.

Officials on Thursday inspected the premises of the Thammanam market and the nearby narrow junction and took stock of the need to straighten curves in the corridor leading to Pullepady. Officials of the KRFB (which is implementing the road development project), corporation works standing committee chairperson Sunitha Dixon, councillors George Nanat and Zakir Thammanam, and the civic body’s executive engineer inspected the stretch.

Stakeholders are keen to straighten all curves on the stretch, considering the spree of fatal accidents at the curve near the Elamkulam metro station on SA Road during the past year, it is learnt.

The PWD and the KRFB had done preparatory work to widen and extend the Thammanam-Pullepady road. Traffic pattern study of junctions is over, and a study is under way to design them. An overbridge may be built at Kathrikadavu, to cross Kaloor-Kadavanthra road.

KWA under fire

Meanwhile, the Kerala Water Authority (KWA) is under fire for not restoring the 1-km-long stretch from Kathrikadavu to Karanakodam it had dug up in January to lay pipelines. “The KWA has been directed to restore the stretch in a week, since motorists and pedestrians are having a harrowing time,” official sources said.

“We will restore the stretch in a few days,” said a KWA official who is associated with pipeline laying works under the AMRUT programme. “We have directed the contractor to temporarily restore the stretch using granular sub base [GSB] method. We have remitted to the Kochi Corporation the fee to resurface the trenched areas,” he added.