Two tunnel roads mooted to decongest ghat road

Konkan Railway aid to be sought for preparing project report

An aerial view of the Thamarassery ghat road.

The district administration has decided to strengthen the ongoing measures and has come up with fresh proposals, including construction of two tunnel roads, in a bid to de-congest the Thamarassery ghat road that connects Kozhikode to Wayanad.

A review meeting held at the district collectorate here on Wednesday wanted to put in place a permanent solution to ease the vehicular movement on the 12-km-long stretch of ghat road. The assistance of the Konkan Railway Corporation Limited (KRCL) would be sought to prepare projects for constructing two tunnel roads - Maruthilavu-Vythiri-Kalpetta and Anakkampoyil-Kalladi-Meppadi. The project report would be submitted to the State government, George M. Thomas, MLA, told the meeting.

He said that Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac had agreed to provide funds from Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB), a government owned financial institution, for this purpose.

The distance of the proposed Anakkampoyil- Kalladi-Meppadi tunnel road will be 6 km while the Maruthilavu-Vythiri-Kalpetta road will be 13 km. The State government would take a final decision on the project, Mr. Mathew said.

The meeting also decided to complete the patch works as well as concreting and tarring on the ghat road within a month. The Public Works Department recommended regulating the movement of heavy vehicles for a month. As many as 14,000 vehicles pass through the road daily and the vehicle volume increases to 20,000 during the festival season. Facilities would be made to repair the road in a time-bound manner, officials said.

District Collector U.V. Jose said that steps would be taken soon to pave all the nine hair-pin bends with tiles. Besides, the ghat road would be widened after acquiring 0.92 hectares of forest land. The acquisition of land was in the final stages, he said.

The district administration has already banned heavy vehicles carrying over 25 tonnes of load on the route. A check-post for the purpose of blocking goods-laden carriers started functioning at Adivaram last week. Parking arrangements would be made at Lakkidi from February 1 for motorists to view the tourist points on the route.