The proposal for a railway station at Nedumbassery near the Cochin international airport, still remains on paper. The halt would have helped thousands of travellers both from the Thrissur and Kottayam .

“The CIAL board of directors has taken an in-principle decision to provide land free of cost for setting up the halt station. But the actual land required can only be determined once they complete the survey work.

Even that has not been done,” a CIAL official said. The then railway minister of state, Mr E. Ahamed, had laid the foundation stone for the station at Nedumbassery on December 12, 2010.

The plan was to build the station between the Akaparamba level crossing gate and Nedumbassery Road over bridge, hardly 20 minute walk to the airport. However, the railways cite funds crunch for non-implementation of the project.

“The railways is fighting a financial crisis. Even the Ponnurunni halt near Vytilla announced much earlier is still a non-starter,” a railway official at the Trivandrum division said.