Kochi Metro to work out realignment plan

Kochi: With oil companies raising objection to its original alignment in the two km Tripunithura- Petta section, the Kochi Metro Rail Ltd (KMRL) has started the process to work out a revised alignment. “Tenders have been floated for redesigning and proposing revised alignment. Monday is the last date for submission of bids,” said a metro spokesperson. Earlier, the KMRL had initiated land acquisition process in the section but the Indian Oil Corporation raised an objection to the original alignment prepared by the Rail India Technical and Economic Services (RITES) on safety grounds.

The company officials held a meet with the KMRL authorities on January 16 in which they demanded that the alignment should have a clearance of five metres from the oil pipelines. This was to ensure that there will be no threat to the pipelines even while construction activities such as piling are undertaken. “We’d a three-metre clearance after the underground oil pipe lines were found to be passing through the right side of the road in the SN junction direction from Pettah. Now the plan is to take more land, 1.5 to two metres, to the left side with thrust on minimum land acquisition. We’re in close touch with the Revenue Department and start land acquisition in the stretch at the earliest so that no delay is suffered,” the official said.

The DMRC want construction in the Pettah-SN Junction to be taken up along with the works in the Thykoodam-Petta section next year and wants the land acquisition and other processes to be completed before that. The DMRC also want the contractor Cherian Varkey Constructions, entrusted with the work till Pettah, to carry out the construction work on the Pettah-Tripunithura stretch too. Otherwise a separate tender needed to be called for under two-km stretch, a tough job as most contractors will be reluctant to take up the small work.