The tarring of Vanchiyoor-Uppidamoodu road has begun. It is expected to be completed in a week.
The laying of box culverts to cover the Amaizhanchan canal, which began almost a year ago, has been completed. Three hundred boxes of size 2 x 2.5 metre were used to cover the canal. After covering the canal, the road has got a width of 6.5 metres on either side of the median. Minister V S Sivakumar, who inspected the site, said that the tarring works will be completed in a week.
The project had hit several hurdles earlier. First hurdle was in the form of trees, which the Thiruvananthapuram Road Development Company Ltd planned to axe for the road widening works. This was met with severe protest from environmentalists. Finally, the trees were cut down almost a year ago.
The project got delayed again due to works to shift a sewage line from the stretch.
Though the 300-metre-stretch of the Vanchiyoor-Uppidamoodu road has been widened, the two ends of the stretch will continue as bottlenecks.
Sources in the Kerala Road Fund Board said that road widening was taken up considering the proximity to the district sessions court at Vanchiyoor.
"The projects that we take up are often met with many hurdles including the difficulties in land aquisition, fund crunch and so on. Further land acquisition and widening of the remaining stretch will be carried out in the future," said an official.
The KRFB is planning to wind up city road improvement project with the completion of works of the Vanchiyoor-Uppidamoodu road.
