Leader of the Opposition V. D. Satheesan on Saturday said the SilverLine DPR published by the government was an amateurish eyewash attempt to pull the hood over the public eye.
The government had uploaded the 3,777-page report on the website of the Kerala Legislative Assembly. A breach of privilege notice by Anwar Sadat, MLA, appeared to have prompted the move, he said.
Mr. Satheesan said the report did not answer several pertinent questions. It was a copy of the SilverLine consultancy report cobbled together by a foreign firm.
He said the government would have to hollow out the Western Ghats to find enough granite to raise the 292-km-long embankment for the semi-highspeed railway.
It would lead to massive ecological degradation and environmental crime. Stone shortage had hobbled the Vizhinjam port construction. The 530-km-long railway line would subsume large tracts of paddies, forests, environmentally fragile wetlands, sacred groves and mangroves.
Moreover, SilverLine would tear the State asunder, and the barrier would impede natural drainage and exacerbate floods and mudslides.
The State’s economy was precarious. The socially, economically, and environmentally untenable project would foist an irredeemable debt on the public exchequer.
Moreover, the scheme entailed the displacement of thousands of families and the destruction of hundreds of buildings. SilverLine would also bring in a development freeze within a two-km radius of the railway.
The Central Railway Board was deeply sceptical of the project. It had raised the same doubts posed by the United Democratic Front.
He said the Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train plied on an average of 36,000 passengers. Kerala government said K-Rail would ferry 80,000 daily. Mr. Satheesan asked the government to explain the calculus.
