The third and final phase of the 41.8-km City Road Improvement Project (CRIP) in the capital city will be completed soon, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has said.
He was speaking after throwing open the second phase of CRIP, covering 9.5 km of roads, at a function at VJT Hall here on Wednesday.
Mr. Chandy said it was a shame that CRIP, which began in 2004, could not be completed in a time-bound manner. “Land acquisition was the main hurdle for the road development getting delayed,” he said.
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He said the pace at which Minister for Public Works V.K. Ebrahim Kunju was working to implement road development projects had come as a surprise.
After the United Democratic Front (UDF) had come to power in the State, the Public Works Department had taken the highest amount of money from the treasury for the development of roads. The road network across the State had improved in the past seven months, he said.
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Mr. Chandy felicitated the former director of the National Transportation Planning and Research Centre and architect of CRIP N.S. Srinivasan.
The 2-km Kowdiar-Peroorkada stretch; 2.75-km RR Lamp-Statue-Overbridge-Pazhavangady stretch; 1.46-km Attakulangara-Sreevarahom-Enchakkal stretch; 2.7-km Museum Junction-Bakery-Panavila-Model School junction stretch; and the 600-m new alignment at Shanghumughom are the corridors that were officially thrown open to traffic by Mr. Chandy.
Mr. Kunju, who presided over the function, said CRIP had changed the face of the city with roads developed according to international standards.
Minister for Transport V.S. Sivakumar said the government had taken steps to convert the Karamana-Kaliyikkavila stretch of National Highway-47 into a four-lane stretch. The Chief Minister had been asked to reconstitute the high power and empowered committees for read development that were set up during the tenure of A.K. Antony as Chief Minister.