THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Whenever Dr. Bernard Aritua, World Bank team leader, visited Kerala to monitor the Kerala State Transport Project (KSTP) work, his passion shamed local officials. While he moved around under the scorching sun to evaluate the progress of KSTP, Public Works Departments and KSTP officials preferred the comfort of air-conditioned cars. Unfortunately, it was the same top official who invited the wrath of the PWD minister G. Sudhakaran. But except a couple of stretches, a majority of KSTP roads are lagging, thanks to Sudhakaran and his ‘dedicated’ team, observers say.
PWD had tied up with the World Bank-aided KSTP project in 2002 which was intended to be completed in 2007, but it’s success prompted them to continue benefitting Kerala's roads by improving their capacity and the quality of the highly congested State highways and major district roads. It was also aimed at reducing road accidents and fatalities along project roads which led to the second phase of the KSTP. World Bank officials were happy with the KSTP roads built during the first stage that withstood heavy rains during 2013. The previous UDF Government had made great strides in KSTP’s work as funds were released only after the World Bank’s top officials personally evaluated the progress.
“Why should the World Bank give a loan to construct roads in our State? We used to get the best technical advice from World Bank experts. They closely monitored the progress achieved and many a time, Dr. Bernard Aritua had visited Kerala when he could have actually sent his junior team. Unfortunately, the PWD minister ranted at him and hurled serious racial slurs which should have been avoided”, said a top PWD official. Former PWD minister V. K. Ebrahim Kunju had visited the World Bank headquarters twice in Washington during the Oommen Chandy Government. He relentlessly chased the project and KSTP officials were almost up to date with the works. But towards the fag end of the UDF ministry, KSTP and PWD officials turned out to be inefficient in discharging their duties and it got aggravated when the Left ministry came to power.
“We ensured that there was camaraderie with the World Bank officials as it has always been difficult to get foreign funds for infrastructure development, especially for roads. They(the World Bank) were also happy with the progress attained during the first phase of the KST, but they were not keen to award the second phase. But we were firm in our stand forcing them to be lenient” said Ebraim Kunju to DC. KSTP’s phase II is expected to be completed by 2018 at a project cost of Rs 2403 crore which had been considered as one of the major accomplishments among all the developmental initiatives of the previous UDF government. But now because of the inordinate delay, it is to be seen whether World Bank officials will show any mercy to the State as they do not wish to be seen in bad light. The construction work of Thiruvalla bypass, which was inaugurated during early 2014, was expected to be completed within 24 months but that has been inordinately delayed.
“KSTP roads are constructed as per international standards as each layer of the road is completed in different stages. But the World Bank officials realised that standards had drastically fallen forcing them to warn the PWD minister and his team of officials which led Mr Sudhakaran to rant at the World Bank official”, said another PWD official. He also added that World Bank officials were unhappy when they realized that KSTP officials had not constructed drains on the sides of the roads and that witnessed public outrage at several areas in Kasaragod district. The road stretch between Vetturoad – Adoor worth Rs 80 crore was made as a zero accident prone road where now construction work is progressing.
The main objective of KSTP –II has been to improve conditions, traffic flow and road safety with a focus on the volume of road users on selected roads in Kerala. During 2017-18, finance minister T. M. Thomas Isaac had earmarked Rs 523 crore for the World Bank’s KSTP’s 363 km stretch. Central funding for KSTP was only Rs 84 crore.The KSTP-II project envisages the upgradation of 363 km of State Highway to Major District Roads , development of Model Safe Corridor of 80 km and Institutional Strengthening of PWD. The total Project cost is 445 million USD out of which 216 million USD is loan assistance from the World Bank. The project implementation period stretches from 2013 to 2018. The World Bank’s task team leader of KSTP II Arnab Bandyopadhyay had said that the first phase of KSTP had been a mixed bag of success and failures, but the final outcome was very good.
During a visit to Thiruvananthapuram to attend a seminar organised by World Bank officials, he had said that funding from Japan International Corporation Agency (JICA) and Asian Development Bank (ADB) were limited which Ebrahim Kunju also confirms. Bandyopadhyay informed that 75 percent of the roads in the State fell under the vulnerable category where a majority of the users were two-wheeler riders. “Though there are no documents to prove the increase in crashes and injuries happening on Kerala roads, I can still say that it is due to the bad road conditions that it is happening. So it is high time we improve the conditions of the vulnerable road users”, said Bandyopadhyay. The success of KSTP –II lies in three components – road network upgrading and safety improvement, road safety management and institutional strengthening which has since been compromised by the Left Government .
