Kochi metro’s Kakkanad extension needs to surmount hurdles

KMRL is reportedly unable to take possession of land owing to non-availability of ₹100 crore sanctioned to compensate landowners

The inordinate delay in disbursing money to people who surrendered land for Kochi metro’s Kakkanad extension, widening of the 11.20-km-long corridor, and developing alternative roads to divert traffic when barricades would be erected from January for piling is seen as a hiccup in the process of establishing metro connectivity to the district’s IT hub.

Kochi Metro Rail Limited (KMRL) is reportedly unable to take possession of many plots of land, especially on the congested and heavily encroached Civil Line Road, owing to non-availability of approximately ₹100 crore that was sanctioned to compensate landowners, but is yet to be handed over to the agency. This comes at a time when 75% of land acquisition is over and the State government’s administrative sanction is awaited to acquire land for stations proposed along the corridor.

The first meeting of stakeholders held here on Wednesday saw Hibi Eden, MP, demanding that KMRL improve the condition of roads in the proposed alignment. He further demanded widening of bottlenecked/encroached roads through which traffic would be diverted when the extension works begin.

Thrikkakara MLA Uma Thomas demanded that KMRL take a relook at the drainage plan in the corridor, keeping in mind flash floods that inundated the city during monsoon.

Ernakulam District Residents’ Associations Apex Council (EDRAAC), merchant bodies, and NGOs had repeatedly demanded speedy completion of the preparatory work and development of roads such as Puthiya Road-Seaport-Airport Road stretch that runs parallel to Civil Line Road to divert vehicles. The metro’s Aluva-Pettah phase one work saw dozens of roads being developed and overbridges being built to streamline vehicle flow before piling works were taken up.

The metro’s phase-2 extension from Jawaharlal Nehru International Stadium to Infopark at Kakkanad got the Centre’s formal sanction in September soon after commissioning of its phase 1-A extension from Pettah to SN Junction.

KMRL has, in the meantime, floated a tender inviting project management consultants. KMRL managing director Loknath Behera, District Collector Renu Raj, and District Police Chief (Kochi City) C.H. Nagaraju, Kochi Corporation Additional Secretary V.S. Shibu, and councillors of wards through which phase-2 alignment passes were present at the meeting, which was convened to ensure completion of the metro viaduct in two years as was envisaged.