The Hindu Business Line : An underpass to underdevelopment?

FROM the way the local media went to town, one could have been forgiven for thinking that Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala, had been magically transformed into a city of plenitude. That was the kind of rapturous reportage that heralded the opening last week of the capital's first underpass at the Palayam city centre, 313-metre long and 12.70-metre wide, and, more importantly, as the media breathlessly reminded us, constructed in a record seven-and-a-half months.

"It is a miracle in the development history of the State that the project was completed ahead of schedule. My predecessors could not get this opportunity," the Chief Minister, Mr Oommen Chandy, gushed while inaugurating the underpass on August 1. As if to make the ceremony even more memorable, a gold ring was presented to the Minister for Public Works, Dr M.K. Muneer, for completing the underpass within the time frame.

The ring was to honour a commitment made some months ago by the Finance Minister, Mr Vakkom Purushothaman, who had publicly declared, almost like a challenge, that he would gift Dr Muneer a gold ring if the Public Works Minister could finish the underpass project within the stipulated deadline.

In the event, that deadline was met and thus came to be born "a milestone on the State capital's road to development". The underpass forms part of a larger road improvement project undertaken by the Trivandrum Development Authority (Trida) for the development of 65 junctions, construction of 35 culverts and widening of another 30 culverts. The Authority will have to acquire 20 acres in the heart of the city to complete the project. The acquisition calls for Rs 70 crore and the work itself is estimated to cost Rs120 crore.

The day after the inauguration of the underpass, the authorities set in motion new traffic regulations in Palayam to ease the chronic traffic congestion there - which, in any case, was the primary reason for the construction of the underpass itself. And, within two-and-a-half hours of the introduction of the new traffic rules, they were unreservedly withdrawn. The reason? Chaotic traffic logjams and confusion as motorists struggled to make sense of where and how to proceed.

The proof of the pudding, they say, is in the eating, and in that post-underpass chaos lies the simple truth that you should not assume that something is in order until the final and finer details are ironed out and effectively implemented. Especially since the authorities seem keen to flaunt their development agenda and achievements too easily.

The underpass botch-up is just a microcosm of Kerala's larger development snafus. Often, planners and government officials plunge headlong into projects without sufficient preparation or consultations. As in the case of the Palayam underpass, sometimes even plain commonsense is thrown to the winds in the rush to flaunt impressive statistics.

In any case, building an underpass is no claim to development prowess. What ought to have been a routine advancement of a State capital's amenities was blown out of proportion. Perhaps that is the lesson to be understood - an underpass may well camouflage underdevelopment.

The writer can be contacted at kgkumar@gmail.com

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