KOCHI: More skeletons are tumbling out of the closet on the Palarivattom flyover fiasco, with National Highways Authority of India confirming it did not not have the No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the NHAI.
Senior officers told Express the then state government did not obtain the mandatory NOC from NHAI for constructing the flyover on NH66, which is under its jurisdiction. “We also sent a reminder to the state government on the matter, but there was no response from them,” said an NHAI officer.
The then state government had started the procedures for constructing the flyover in 2013. Work on the structure began in September 2014 after an agreement was reached with RDS Project Ltd to complete the work in 24 months. While KITCO was the project consultant, Roads and Bridges Development Corporation of Kerala Ltd (RBDCK) was the implementing agency with fund for the project sourced from Kerala Road Fund Board (KRFB).
Neither KITCO nor RBDCK had availed the NOC for the project from the NHAI before or during the construction of the flyover.
A P M Mohammed Hanish, the then RBDCK MD, said the corporation was only the implementing agency and it was upto the state government to avail necessary clearance for the project from the NHAI.
“The state government took up the project to avoid toll collection. If the project was implemented by the NHAI, they would’ve imposed it,” he said.
PWD Minister G Sudhakaran said the Vigilance should probe whether the previous government had taken NOC from the NHAI for the flyover. Former PWD minister V K Ebrahim Kunju was not available for comment.