A mega project of the Kerala Water Authority (KWA) has seemingly upset the plans of the Kerala Road Fund Board (KRFB), posing the big question - drinking water or motorable road?
The Peroorkada-Vazhayila road, where road-widening work is nearing completion under the Thiruvananthapuram City Road Improvement Project (TCRIP), is part of a major pipe-laying project of the KWA.
The KRFB and TRDCL (Thiruvananthapuram Road Development Company Ltd), the concessionaire of road development work in the city, are up in arms against the KWA move to dig up the renovated road. The KWA maintains that it is a proposal almost two years old, involving huge money and, above all, one that will bring in more volumes of water to the city from Aruvikkara. With drought looming large over the city, the project cannot be abandoned, KWA officials assert.
The KWA has written to the KRFB seeking permission to dig up the road for the pipe-laying which has miffed the road officials. ‘’There is a pipeline road adjacent to the Vazhayila road which was exclusively carved out for laying pipelines. KWA could use that road. Or there are improved technologies to lay pipes without cutting out a road from one end to the other. Without considering other options, the move to dig up the repaired road when work on it is 80-90 per cent over is really bad,’’ said a top TRDCL official.
The TRDCL has already spent more than Rs 5 crore on the development of the 1.4-km Peroorkada-Vazhayila stretch which once used to be a nightmare for motorists. However, the KWA proposal has already moved forward and is expected to be on track from January 15. Under the project, cement pipes are to be replaced by metal pipes for which the first set of pipes has already arrived.
‘’It is a government project, meant to increase water supply to the city. The road officials are well aware of its magnitude and it’s not a project drawn up overnight. The pipes had to be tailor-made, for which we had placed orders almost a year ago. Moreover, we are compensating the KRFB with an amount of Rs 6.5 crore out of the total Rs 48-crore project just to cut the road and restore it. Had we got any other option, we could have saved the large sum,’’ said KWA Chief Engineer Sreekumaran Nair.
According to KWA officials, the pipeline road is not an option since it already has three pipelines going through it. A fourth one could derail the existing live pipelines. Moreover, the road is a service road with a KSEB transformer there and issues like encroachments plaguing it, officials said.
The KWA has already written to the District Collector to allow traffic diversion on the road from January 15 in view of the pipe-laying project.
However, the road officials have communicated their strong displeasure over the digging of the road, which is seeing better days only recently. It remains to be seen if a middle path evolves.