Kochi: The CPM on Tuesday demanded an all-party meet to find a way to ease the acute traffic problems in the city due to the ongoing metro construction work. There is no co-ordination between the state government, metro agencies and the Kochi Corporation, the party alleged.
“The city has been bottled up due to lack of alternative arrangements to facilitate the metro works. To make matters worse, there is no co-ordination between the various agencies. For anything and everything, the chief minister calls for a meeting, which has apparently no results,” said P Rajeev, MP, during a protest march by party activists from Penta Menaka to the KMRL office.
He said traders were willing to give land, but the district authorities and the Kochi Corporation failed to acquire the land for road widening.
“If the authorities fail to take immediate action to resolve traffic jams, the CPM will strengthen the protest. The situation will only worsen in the rainy season. An all-party meet should be convened at the earliest to devise a way out,” district secretary C M Dinesh Mani said.
The AIYF also staged a protest march to the KMRL office, with the police stopping the activists around 100 metres from the office.
KMRL’s managing director Elias George has appealed to all parties to end the “blame game” and work together for the timely completion of the project.
“The civil work is progressing smoothly. Agreed there is some difficulty for the common people. But that is part and parcel of such a huge project. It’s everywhere, in Chennai, in Mumbai only thing is that the roads here are too narrow,” he said.
