100 km Kerala roads put under Bharatmala project

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Two road projects in Kerala would be developed under the Bharatmala scheme of the union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH).

They are NH 85’s 167-km stretch,  Kochi – Muvattupuzha – Adimali – Munnar – Bodi – Madurai,  and NH 213’s 218-km Kozhikode – Palakkad–Coimbatore–Salem road. But the state government has to develop the four-lane road with 45-metre width at a cost of Rs 5,000 crore for 100 km. With the fiscal crunch,   the government is facing a dilemma  over the Bharatmala project.

The union government had announced its  prestigious project last month--the second largest highways construction project  after the National Highway Development Project (NHDP) involving 50,000-km highway work  across the country. The other day a high-level committee agreed to the sanctioning of project (SoP) when NH 85 and NH 213 in Kerala were included under the Bharatmala project.

The main agencies undertaking the  work under Bharatmala  are the National Highway Authority of India and  National Highway and Industrial Development Corporation. But the state PWD will have to bear 10 percent of the funding, a PWD source said.

“The state  has to ac quire land  and then update the agencies. Already,  the existing NH development works are in limbo,” the official said.

The Modi  government  plans to get Bharatmala project  rolling by December next year.

“States like Rajasthan and Maharashtra are going ahead with the  project. We  hope the state government will change its policies.  The file on the Bharatmala scheme is before  PWD secretary G. Kamala Vardhana Rao,” added the official.