THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The development of the proposed Outer Ring Road in Thiruvananthapuram is a step closer to reality with the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) floating an e-tender for the project on Wednesday.
The NHAI has divided the tender into two reaches — the first, a 29-kilometre stretch from Navaikulam to Thekkada, and the second, a 33.4-kilometre stretch from Thekkada to Vizhinjam. Surprisingly, no tender has been called for the development of the link road that connects Thekkada and Mangalapuram.
“The tender for the link road will be called later,” said P Pradeep, project director of NHAI. The total expected cost of the Navaikulam-Thekkada road is Rs 1,478.31 crore, and for the Thekkada-Vizhinjam stretch, Rs 1,489.15 crore. The e-tender has been uploaded to the NHAI website, and the last date for bidding is March 16.
Earlier, the demarcation of the Thekkada-Mangalapuram stretch was delayed due to protests from the local residents. It was resolved after the intervention of the district collector. The demarcation as part of the land acquisition for the outer ring road has crossed 60 kilometres. The whole process is expected to be completed by mid-February. The land acquisition is also slated to begin then.
The demarcation is being done by the NHAI in association with the revenue department and a Bhopal-based firm, the Highway Engineering Consultant. Recently, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said the Centre is giving utmost importance to the outer ring road and that the tender proceedings will be completed by March this year. The proposed 77-kilometre highway will start from Vizhinjam and end at Navaikulam, near the Kollam border. A total of 348.09 hectares of land will be acquired for the project.