A World Bank (WB) interim mission is arriving in the State next month to review the Phase II works of the WB-funded Kerala State Transport Project (KSTP) even as a decision is awaited on extending the Phase II for another two years from April 2019.
The six-member WB team headed by task team leader Arnab Bandopadhyay, who will be in the State from April 8 to 12, will visit all the 363-km State Highway (SH) corridors spread over 10 packages for seeing progress of the works and for the review.
The mission will have specialists to look into all parameters, including the economic, road safety aspects, bridge and highway engineering of the corridors being developed with the support of a WB loan of $216 million, official sources told The Hindu . Besides visiting the corridors, the team will meet the project officials and contractors before preparing the report.
The team will look into the upgrade of the 28.80-km Thalassery-Kalaroad and the 25.2-km Kalaroad-Valavupara stretch, where the works had to be tendered again and awarded to new contractors due to the poor physical progress and criticism of the WB missions.
Thiruvalla bypass
Another corridor that will come under the scanner will be the Thiruvalla bypass that is being upgraded at a cost of ₹38.3 crore and overlay in Thiruvalla Town.
The 80-km safe corridor demonstration project in the Vettu road-Thycode to Adoor on the MC Road that has already been overlaid and provided with road markings will also be inspected by the mission.
The 82.13-km Punalur-Ponkunnam road that is still on paper will come up during the review.
EPC mode
The upgrade was taken as Engineering Procurement Construction (EPC) mode as the public-private-partnership on design, build, finance, operate, maintain, and transfer mode under the hybrid annuity basis did not succeed.
Meanwhile, the State sanctioned ₹50 crore on March 21 to the KSTP for making payments for the pending IPCs, land acquisition cases and other administrative expenses. Poor financial progress is also one of the criticisms raised by the WB on the Phase II.
The KSTP II was kicked off in June 2013 to upgrade 363 km of SH along with improvement of traffic flow and strengthening the road safety management systems.
