Kochi gets little for the development of the road in front of other cities

A Kochi Water Metro ferry leaves its station at the Vyttila Mobility Center, on February 7. A total of ₹ 159.60 million rupees have been assigned to the water metro project in the budget. | Photo credit: Thulasi Kakkat

The Kochi Metro has been assigned a sum of ₹ 289 million rupees, and another 26.37 million rupees have been separated for their non -motorized projects (those such as the work of re -urbanization of trails inside and outside the Metro corridor).

The funds would be useful for the Kakkanad extension of 11.20 km of the Metro. For its part, the Kochi water metro obtained a total of ₹ 159.60 million rupees, which would be used to obtain more ferry and to build more terminals, among others, it is learned.

Welcoming the inclusion of metropolitan rail projects of Thirvananthapuram and Kozhikode in the budget, Loknath Behera, managing director of Kochi Metro Rail Limited (KMRL), said that the Metro agency had prepared comprehensive mobility plans for meters in the two cities and gave them the government. The draft of the detailed report of the project (DPR) for the Thiruvananthapuram Metro that was prepared by the Delhi Railway Corporation (DMRC) is already with the government. For its part, Kmrl would prepare a DPR for the Kozhikode Metro once the government made an ad, said the Metro agency in a statement.

The Ernakulam KSRTC bus position on Friday. The budget has not allocated funds for the redevelopment of the ruins and its facilities. | Photo credit: Thulasi Kakkat

Interestingly, except for the allocation to resurface / rebuild short stretches of roads, there was no remarkable assignment in the budget for the new road corridors to decongest the city of Kochi, apart from ₹ 15 million rupees that could be used to develop existing roads and Prepare a group of roads. These had found mention in a memorandum in this regard that was recently presented to the Minister of Finance by the Kochi Corporation. The roads included KP Vallon Road, Goshree-Mamangalam Road and Palluruthy Parallel Road.

The Civic Agency had also specifically demanded ₹ 10 million rupees to rebuild the inactivated KSRTC bus support and its premises, and ₹ 5 million rupees to beautify Fort Kochi beach and the beach protection measures. The reurbing of the bus position has been hanging fire during the last decades.

On the contrary, a total of ₹ 5,207.43 million rupees have been assigned in the budget to develop 48 roads in five cities: Kannur, Kozhikode, Alappuzha, Kollam and Thiruvananthapuram through the financing of the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Board (Kiifb) . These road works are in progress. Kochi also does not find mention in the road improvement project (CRIP) of the Government that was launched more than a decade ago in these cities. A sum of ₹ 741.67 million rupees under Crip has already been spent in these cities.