Long-pending Kochi Bypass project gets fillip with Centre’s approval

The long-delayed Kochi Bypass project got a boost with the Center approving a 50-km-long, eight-lane-wide green space corridor connecting Aroor on NH 66 to Angamaly on NH 544.

This will allow inter-district and other vehicles to avoid the congested and accident-prone Aroor-Edapally NH 66 Ring Road, Edapally-Angamaly NH 544 line and over a dozen bottleneck junctions along the route, saving significant time and fuel.

The Kochi Ring Road was mooted a decade ago as a 44-km-long, six-lane corridor connecting Nettoor on the NH 66 Ring Road to Karayamparambu, north of Angamaly. The project remains in limbo after the 3A notification expires in 2024.

“A new 3A notification for the proposed eight-lane-wide NH project will be issued shortly. The Center has permitted acquisition of 70-metre-wide land (compared to the previous 45-metre-wide NH proposal). This will allow cutting of an eight-lane-wide area which can be expanded to ten lanes in the second phase of the project,” MP Benny Behanan said, blaming the delay in starting construction of the project on the slow progress in land acquisition during the LDF government.

This also led to the traffic survey report done five years ago for the six-lane Kochi Ring Road project becoming obsolete. Mr. Behanan, who has repeatedly expressed the demand for the project in the Lok Sabha, added that given the huge increase in inter-state, inter-district and intra-district vehicular traffic, it requires a fresh traffic study indicating the need for an eight-lane corridor.

While NHAI sources stated that the proposed Kochi Bypass will be eight lanes wide, they said more details about the project are awaited.

The decision to extend the alignment from Nettoor to Aroor has raised questions about the trumpet-shaped flyover that NHAI has designed at Nettoor. The trumpet flyover, a smaller version of the butterfly-shaped cloverleaf flyover, would serve traffic flowing from NH Bypass, Kochi Bypass and Kochi Port Connectivity NH to Nettoor.