This 6.8 km Alappuzha bypass is the new political playground in Kerala

By Asianet Newsable English | First Published Jan 22, 2021, 9:04 AM IST

The Alappuzha bypass road, which will be opened to traffic on January 28 after having been conceived over 5 decades ago, is now witnessing a war for taking credit.

The 6.8km long road is first of its kind elevated highway in the country that runs along the scenic beachside of Alappuzha. The bypass road will link Kommady in the north to Kalarcode in the south. Out of the total length of the road, approximately 3.2 km stretch is a flyover.

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The BJP claims that the Narendra Modi government was responsible for the long-pending project being completed.

BJP leader Amit Malviya took to Twitter to say, "Finally, it took Modi government to make the Alappuzha bypass a reality! Conceived in the 1970s, work started only in 2015."

The Left Democratic Front government, though, thinks otherwise.

The Pinarayi Vijayan government has claimed that pending road projects had been revived and completed during its tenure.

The total cost of the bypass project was fixed in 2015 was Rs 348 crore which was to be equally shared by the state and Union governments.

After multiple delays, the work on the project finally inaugurated on April 10, 2015, by Union Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari. If not for design errors in girders for the Railway overbridge, the bypass would have been completed by September 2017.

Now that the bypass road is finally ready, the state government claimed that some vested interests were delaying the opening of the bridge.

The state government claimed that it had received a message from the Centre in November 2020 informing that the Prime Minister would want to inaugurate the bypass road.

Public Works Minister G Sudhakaran said that the state government waited for two months to get a date from the PMO.

Now, the state government has been informed that the Prime minister will be unavailable following which it has been decided that it will be inaugurated jointly by Nitin Gadkari and Pinarayi Vijayan at 1 pm on January 28.

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