With the State government expected to shortly issue the long-awaited order exempting royalty and Goods and Services Tax (GST) for raw materials for the proposed Kundannoor-Angamaly NH 544 Bypass (referred to as Kochi Bypass), the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has laid the groundwork to issue the 3(A) notification to acquire 287 hectares of land for the greenfield-highway project.
The government had granted in-principle clearance for the waiver in January. However, the Government Order (G.O.) in this regard for the 44-km semi-access controlled NH corridor was not issued.
“It is hoped that the G.O. will be issued this month, since NHAI Chairman Santosh Kumar Yadav held discussions in this regard with top government officials earlier this week, to speed up long-overdue highway projects in Kerala,” said a high-ranking official.
The exemption on GST and royalty for the proposed corridor are together estimated to be ₹400 crore.
The stretch is critical to decongest both the Aroor-Edappally NH 66 Bypass and the Edappally-Angamaly NH 544 corridor — two of the most congested NH stretches in the State. Each of them is used by approximately one lakh passenger car units (PCUs) daily.
Even as the rest of NH 66 is being widened and an elevated highway is being built on the Aroor-Thuravoor stretch, the NHAI is yet to finalise a project to redevelop the 17-km-long Aroor-Edappally NH 66 Bypass. That would make it a bottleneck on the entire NH stretch. The State government must also take a call on allotting quarries to source raw materials for the bypass and other proposed highways, said informed sources.
NHAI officials had recently expressed the fear that the total project cost of the proposed Kochi Bypass would exceed the estimated ₹6,000 crore, owing to the rise in land value and prices of raw materials. The NHAI had in January “put on hold” the Kochi Bypass project owing to the inordinate delay by the State government in issuing a G.O. regarding the GST and royalty waiver. The Centre had insisted on the waiver after it exempted the State from pooling in with 25% of the cost of land acquisition. The development of the Kollam-Sengottai NH too is hanging fire due to delay on the part of the State government in issuing the G.O.
