UDF launches stir for Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode Light Metros

KOZHIKODE/THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: UDF state committee on Saturday decided to intensify the agitation against the UDF government for backing out from the Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode Light Metro projects and Metro Man E. Sreedharan to leave. It was one of the prestigious projects of the UDF government that its successor is trying to abort. Finance minister T. M. Thomas Isaac said in New Delhi that big projects could be taken up only with care.

The UDF decided to take its development agenda as a form of protest against the LDF government, accused of paving the way for private companies.  Both Kozhikode and the state capital will witness demonstrations with the participation of writers and intellectuals.  The meeting held in the presence of opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala and deputy leader Dr M.K. Muneer decided to hold a "people's convention" in Kozhikode on Tuesday in which eminent personalities like historian MGS Narayanan will participate. 

Dr Muneer lamented the way chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan refused to meet Mr Sreedharan even for five minutes. Kozhikode District Congress Committee president T. Siddique, UDF convener P. P. Thankachan, MPs M. K. Raghavan and M. I. Shanavas also were present. “We will be on warpath until the project gets executed, that too under the guidance of the Metro Man,” Mr Siddique told reporters.

DMRC had closed down its project office on February 28 and withdrawn all employees including two engineers saying it had been incurring Rs 16 lakh every month. The entire road development works between Meenchantha and Medical College (14.2 km) in Kozhikode is hanging fire for the last many years due to the delay in the rail project.

Earlier envisaged as monorail, the preparations started way back in 2011 and was scheduled to be completed by 2015. 

In 2014, Mr Sreedharan, the DMRC's principal advisor, proposed the lighter version of the metro, to be completed by 2020.