Time ticks away for road work.

Two fresh developments pertaining to the proposed widening of the Mananchira-Vellimadukunnu road have given a sliver of hope that the multi-crore project will not be shelved at least for the time being.

One of them is the State government sanctioning Rs. 25 crore as a first tranche to acquire land for the project and the second, the State-level Empowered Committee endorsing the recommendations of the District-Level Purchase Committee on land rates.

Nevertheless, a daunting task awaits the new District Collector, N. Prasanth, on utilising the sanctioned amount and acquiring land for widening the 8.4-km Mananchira-Vellimadukunnu stretch of National Highway 212.

The sanctioned amount of Rs. 25 crore is yet to be transferred to the Revenue Department. Less than 30 working days remain for the notification under Section 4(1) of the Land Acquisition Act to expire on April 24.

'If the land is not acquired before that, the Revenue Department will have to start the process from scratch, including preparing a detailed project report,' said M. Sreejith, who had earlier secured a favourable verdict from the High Court of Kerala for widening the road.

One of the reasons for road widening cited by Mr. Sreejith in his petition before the court was that the narrow stretches of the road had snuffed out the lives of 87 persons in accidents in past four years. 'The residents are unsure whether the government would allocate Rs. 500 crore in the budget to acquire land in view of the grave financial situation in the State,' he said.

However, the Collector would be able to deftly utilise the Rs.25 crore once the amount got transferred to the Revenue Department. Improving the narrowest points on the NH stretch should be his priority so as to ease the traffic congestion, he said.

The stretch from the Malaparamba junction to the Civil Station had been identified as a bottleneck even during non-peak hours. It had an intersection of Highways No 17 and 212. This congestion would worsen with the opening of the entire 28.12-km Kozhikode Bypass from Idimuzhikkal to Vengalam.

Similarly, the government land from the Civil Station to the Eranhipalam junction and from the Malaparamba junction to ADM Bungalow could be developed. Another stretch experiencing traffic jam was from the Marad court to East Nadakkavu, Mr. Sreejith said.


THE HINDU