Kerala to speed up highway projects

Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala Government will initiate steps to speed up the process of land acquisition for the development of National Highways in the State for four-lane traffic.

The Minister for Public Works, Mr Mons Joseph, said here on Friday that special officers would be appointed for the purpose as sought by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). Also, a meeting of NHAI and PWD officials will be held here next month to discuss the highway development projects in the State.

Revised estimates

The Minister said that the State Government would submit the revised estimates for the project to the Centre and the work could be completed within four years once the land had been acquired.

Cost

Upgrade of each kilometre of the National Highways will cost around Rs 6 crore and the total length of the roads to be covered under the project will be around 837 km. The work will be executed on build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis with a lock-in period of 20 years, during which toll will be levied at the rate of 60 paise per km.

Centre’s nod

Mr Joseph said the Centre had accepted in principle the proposals given by the State Government for the development of Vypeen-Moothakunnam ferry road, the Seaport-Airport Road and construction of flyovers at Kundannur, Vyttila, Edappaly and Palarivattom in Kochi. The Centre has asked the State to submit detailed proposals on these projects within a fortnight.

Repair works

He said that the Public Works Department expected to get back around 3,000 km of the 13,000 km transferred to district panchayats under the decentralisation programme.

The department has already taken up repair of state highways and other roads and the signing of the State Support Agreement has cleared the way for repair of the National Highways also.

The department would prepare a master plan for revamping the rest houses and tourist bungalows under it, the Minister said and added that experience had shown that the Government did not benefit from leasing out rest houses and tourist bungalows to private groups.