NATPAC to ready feasibility report for Vyttila-Chittetukara elevated greenfield corridor in a month

Feasibility report for elevated corridor connecting Vyttila and Kakkanad IT hub to be submitted to Infopark authorities.

The National Transportation Planning and Research Centre (NATPAC) is engaged in readying a feasibility report on constructing an elevated greenfield corridor linking Vyttila and Chittetukara in Kakkanad, to provide fast, seamless connectivity between the biggest junction in Kerala and the IT hub at Kakkanad.

A report in this regard will be submitted to Infopark authorities in a month, it is learnt. The Infopark had sought NATPAC’s technical help a year ago to augment connectivity to the IT hub.

The development comes in the wake of worsening traffic snarls on the Civil Line Road which has been extensively barricaded for Kochi Metro’s Kakkakad extension, the Edapally-Aroor NH 66 Bypass and also on the Vyttila-Tripunithura Road.

Informed sources said that the approximately five-km elevated corridor that has been mulled in the Vyttila Junction-Eroor-Chittetukara corridor could provide a solution to commuting woes from the south-eastern parts of Kochi city to the IT hub, Collectorate and other institutions in Kakkanad. The traffic pattern in the stretch is being analysed, to decide on the width of the elevated corridor – whether it has to be two or four lane wide. The elevated corridor could connect Vyttila Junction with the junction on Seaport-Airport Road from where the Infopark expressway takes off.

Its cost and other details, like the need for a ramp running down the elevated structure with roads beneath, would have to be worked out and published in a DPR that could follow the feasibility report, they added.

If realised, the elevated corridor would provide fast and direct connectivity to the IT hub, passing above the picturesque backwaters beneath. IT professionals and others are already reeling due to bottlenecked roads and inadequate bus connectivity, said sources in Infopark.

The NATPAC had already done a survey to decongest among others, Collectorate Junction and the Seaport-Airport Road whose major share passed through Kakkanad. Apart from these two, the Thrikkakara Development Forum (TDF) and IT professionals had over the years been demanding the development of wider access roads to Infopark. The TDF, residents’ associations and people’s representatives from the region had repeatedly protested against the delay in building a flyover at Collectorate Junction and in widening the Seaport-Airport Road as a four-lane corridor, although ample land was already available. The decade-old project to build a four-lane road linking Chakkaraparambu on the the NH bypass with Seaport-Airport Road too is hanging fire.