Work of Thalassery-Valavupara Road comes to a standstill

KANNUR: In the wake of Thalassery-Valavupara Road, a major project of Kerala State Transport Project (KSTP), connecting Thalassery with Coorg in Karnataka, failing to make any significant progress even after 20 months of awarding the work, the authorities have started exploring the possibility of finding an alternative to complete it.
The 53.12km road construction and expansion project for Rs 234 crore was awarded to Essar Projects (EPL) in June 2013.Though the work should be completed by December 2015 as per the agreement, only seven percent work has been completed so far, which has made the officials think of retendering the project if the present contractor fails to meet the deadline, said a KSTP official.
The project involves improvement of the existing state highway from Thalassery to Valavupara on the border of Kerala and Karnataka, as per the standards and conditions of the International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC).
Apart from widening the existing two-lane state highway to standard two lanes with paved shoulders-along with widening and/or reconstruction of box and slab culverts-it also involves construction of seven major bridges, drainage systems, road furniture and appurtenances.
"Since the company has claimed that they have restarted the work, we will once again evaluate the ground situation and if the progress is not satisfactory, we will go ahead with the retendering of the project," said KSPT project director in-charge K P Prabhakaran.
Once the work was halted for over a week and the road between Thalassery town and Eranjoli was blocked for traffic, the public had voiced their protest.
When contacted, an official with Essar Projects said that there was only a temporary stoppage of work and the work would be finished on time.
"There was a small issue related to labour supply owing to which the work was temporarily stopped for eight days, but we are confident of completing the work ontime," said I V Joseph, vice president of the company.
Though the project funded by World Bank was announced long back, it was only in June 2013 that it took off. Once completed it would also address the issue of connectivity to the upcoming Kannur airport from Thalassery.