KOCHI: After a nearly six-year-long wait, the construction of the Kumbalangi-Aroor bridge, which will provide easy access to coastal residents of Ernakulam to the national highway by cutting short the distance by 12 km, will start on Monday.
The 300-metre-long bridge, which will be constructed across the Vembanad lake at a cost of Rs 35.36 crore to connect Kumbalangi village in Kochi taluk and Aroor village in Alappuzha district, is also expected to boost the tourism potential of the region.
“The work will start at 9 am on Monday with ‘bhoomi pooja’. The materials have already been brought to the construction sites at both banks. Considering the safety of the public, the raft ferry service will be stopped by 8 pm on Sunday.
The traffic movement through the section is also banned from Monday. A notice board has been put up at both the KELTRON ferry and Kumbalangi sides, informing the public. We aim to finish the construction in one-and-a-half years,” said an official of the Kerala Road Fund Board (KRFB).
“It was a long-pending demand of residents, mainly of the Kumbalangi region. Many of them work in institutions such as KELTRON and seafood export companies based in Aroor. They currently use the raft service or take the road route. The realisation of the project will spare them the difficulty of circumnavigating around 15 km to reach Aroor.
However, the narrow road from KELTRON ferry to the NH-66 should be widened as the section will see a sizable traffic movement once the bridge is opened,” said Sreenivasan E V, a resident of KELTRON ferry, who provided land for the project.
“The bridge was conceived to give easy access to the Kumbalangi tourism village from the national highway. The facility will bring more tourists here and contribute to the livelihood of local residents. It will also resolve the heavy traffic block in the main road.
Further, people can have easy access to eastern regions like Vaikom and Kottayam. While the work will start tomorrow, the official inauguration will be held later,” said Aroor panchayat president Rakhi Antony.
Panchayat opposes to stopping of ferry service
Meanwhile, differences of opinion has cropped up over the operation of the single ferry service, which is currently the lifeline of thousands of commuters.
While the KRFB wants the ferry service to be completely stopped, the Kumbalangi panchayat opposes it and wants the service to be continued until the work of a parallel ferry route is over.
“We’ve received a letter stating that the ferry service needs to be suspended from Monday. The panchayat has not yet given the nod. We want the service to be continued till the work of the nearby Janata Ferry is completed. We hope to finish the same in another two weeks.
A panchayat committee meeting was convened the other day and we’ve decided to continue operation of the single ferry service till the work of Janata ferry is completed,” Kumbalangi panchayat vice-president P A Sageer, told TNIE.