Two decades on, proposal to widen Seaport-Airport Road still on paper

The corridor, which begins at HMT Junction and ends at Karingachira, is used daily by hundreds of tanker lorries and other goods carriers.
| Photo Credit: H. VIBHU

The over two-decade-long project to transform the narrow, accident-prone Seaport-Airport Road into a four-lane corridor has hit a roadblock. The State government is yet to approve a ₹40-crore proposal submitted by the Public Works department (PWD) in 2022 to widen the stretch.

“The PWD is also awaiting administrative sanction for a ₹25-lakh proposal it submitted in 2024 to the government to reinforce vulnerable parts of the 11.30-km-long road’s shoulder with paver blocks. The proposal was made in the wake of a series of accidents in which two-wheeler riders died after losing balance and getting run over due to the significant level difference between the tarred carriageway and the worn-out road shoulder,” official sources said.

The corridor, which begins at HMT Junction and ends at Karingachira, is used daily by hundreds of tanker lorries and other goods carriers from Kochi Refinery and a host of industries and quarries located in the region as well as lorries that carry garbage from different parts of Kochi to the treatment plant in Brahmapuram. Passenger vehicles have to jostle for space in between.

“The two proposals can be realised only if the government grants them administrative sanction and earmarks at least 20% of the funds in the annual State Budget.

“The least the government can do is approve ₹25 lakh to reinforce the ill-maintained road shoulders of the congested two-lane road so that optimal use can be made of the road width. There is a risk of the edge of the existing narrow carriageway eroding further if there is any delay. The road’s four-laning – for which land had been acquired along the entire corridor at a 30-metre width by Roads and Bridges Development Corporation of Kerala (RBDCK) – should follow as soon as possible, considering the phenomenal increase in traffic over the past 20 years and the spree of accidents,” the sources said. After being flooded with demands from residents’ associations and others to extend the road further southward from Karingachira, the PWD is awaiting sanction for this overdue initiative or its announcement as a special package.

The government is also yet to finalise a project to decongest Collectorate Junction in the corridor, it is learnt. The Thripunithura Rajanagari Union of Residents’ Associations (TRURA) has, in the meantime, welcomed the assurance given by the traffic police to prevent illegal and haphazard parking by tanker lorries and other vehicles in the corridor.

The police said they would step up patrols and send a letter to the PWD, requesting the erection of concrete stumps to curb parking, said V.C. Jayendran and V.P. Prasad, convenor and chairman respectively of TRURA.