Even as the work on widening National Highway-66 into a six-lane corridor is progressing, it seems that the Kerala Water Authority (KWA) and the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) are throwing spanner on the work in many areas in the State, if the letters sent by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to the State government are any indication.
The majority of the developed NH stretches in the State have to be opened for traffic in a year as per the deadline fixed for various reaches. However, the average work progress is about 41% from Kasaragod to Thiruvananthapuram as per the latest report.
A letter sent to the government by the NHAI and the project executing company accused the KWA of not having proper drawings to ascertain the location of pipelines under the NH in many areas, especially in central Kerala. For instance, in the Aroor-Thuravur elevated corridor, the drawing provided by the KWA shows only a single pipeline along both sides of the alignment. However, the contractor company could find two to five pipelines along the stretch.
