Since August last year, it has been ‘standing tall and high’ in front of the City Corporation office. Proudly under the shade of an entrance in Kerala model architecture standing taller than it. It is about the platinum jubilee memorial gate of the Corporation that is being said here.
After lagging for nearly two years, the work of the gate was finally completed last year. When the work was over, the authorities promised to open it within a few weeks. Still, the gate was destined to wait for long, and now the Corporation authorities are planning to throw it open hopefully by June 15 along with the inauguration of the facilitation centre, the work of which is almost over. The gate and the huge entrance were completed by spending Rs 7.55 lakh.
Initially, the obstruction posed by the long hand rails along the footpath outside the gate was cited to be one of the reasons for the delay in opening the gate. However, the Kerala Road Fund Board (KRFB) removed them without much delay. Still, the gate did not open. So then, the opening of the gate and inauguration of the facilitation centre were planned together. Yet, the construction of the facilitation centre too happened at a slow pace. Again, uncertainty prevailed over the opening of the gate.
There were also plans to create enough parking space near the facilitation centre, to reduce the size of the pond in front of the office and for the smooth flow of traffic and to close the present entrance gate to facilitate parking. However, “now the plan is to create separate parking lots for two-wheelers and four-wheelers,” said V S Padmakumar, Works Standing Committee Chairman of the Corporation.
The work of the gate was started during the tenure of the previous council when C Jayan Babu was the Mayor.