THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The tunnel of the Amayizhanchan Canal running underneath the Central Railway Station at Thampanoor in the state capital will be cleaned after nine long years. It took nearly a decade for the state agencies and the Southern Railways to take steps to clean the tunnel passing underneath the railway lines. The last time the tunnel, which was clogged with tonnes of silt and garbage, was cleaned to some extent in 2015 as part of ‘Operation Anantha’ to mitigate flooding in Thampanoor and East Fort areas.
The clogged tunnel came into the limelight for all the wrong reasons following the death of sanitation worker Joy while attempting to clean the same tunnel in July. After a blame game between railway authorities, the City Corporation and the Irrigation Department, the state government finally sanctioned Rs 63 lakh for cleaning up the tunnel.
An official of the Irrigation department said that though it is the responsibility of the railways to undertake cleaning, the custodian of the canal is the Irrigation department. “It has been decades since a proper cleaning of the canal was undertaken. During Operation Anantha, a significant amount of silt and other clogged materials were removed. But a deep cleaning was still pending. Now, we have an idea about how it is done,” the official said.
The department has already floated tenders. “The work will take off within two weeks. We will be opening the tender on September 2. The work is expected to be completed within three months.
The government has directed us to finish the work within one month. We will not be able to do the work on rainy days,” said the official.
As part of the cleaning project, the plan is to excavate and remove 1599.175 m of silt from the tunnel.