Two busy roads, offering cosy rides to motorists, are to be dug up for laying drinking water pipes of the Kerala Water Authority.
The roads were developed under the City Road Improvement Project (CRIP) in the capital to be ‘world class’, after overcoming several hurdles.
The RR Lamp-Museum West gate of Corridor one and the Peroorkada-Vazhayila stretch of AL (Addition Length) 4 are the roads to be dug up. The Thiruvananthapuram Road Development Company Limited (TRDCL), the concessionaire of CRIP, had presented alternative proposals to prevent the digging of the roads, but they were not accepted.
The 150-metre RR Lamp-Museum West gate stretch will be dug to a width of 2.5 metre and a depth of 3 metres for laying pipes of the drinking water project, aided by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). The digging will leave the left side of the carriageway in the busy stretch entirely affected.
“The JICA had remitted the Rs.25 lakh needed for restoration of the road stretch to the Kerala Road Fund Board and the permission has been granted. The work will take two weeks and the traffic will have to be diverted,” CRIP Director and TRDCL Vice President Anil Kumar Pandala told The Hindu .
The digging could have been avoided if the pipes to make available drinking water to the coastal area were laid through the LMS compound. “We even gave an assurance that the parking area that we were ready to restore the parking area in front of the complex if the permission was given. But, it was rejected by the church authorities,” the official said.
Peroorkada-Vazhayila
The 1.4-km Peroorkada-Vazhayila stretch is to be dug up for replacing the water pipes bringing water from Aruvikkara to the city. The new road, laid after overcoming many hurdles, has to be dug up to a depth of two metres and a width of two metres. The TRDCL estimates that a sum of Rs.4 crore is needed for the restoration works. Three culverts, a minor bridge, and an old concrete road will be affected if the stretch is dug up for laying pipes under the Rs.50 crore project of the KWA.
“The KWA should use the adjacent pipeline road for laying the new pipes and should go for piling and tray arrangement rather than seek permission for digging the new road. But, it has also not been accepted,” he said. CRIP officials said the roads would no more be smooth, even if restored, as the level of compaction would not be the same and rolling would not be uniform.
KWA Managing Director Ashok Kumar Singh said the work of laying the pipes in the RR Lamp-Museum stretch would be taken up only after the Attukal pongala festival.
