Of Projects and Project Reports

Of late, the Kerala State Planning Board decided to shelve its much vaunted High Speed Rail Corridor project. The proposal has met with severe criticism from the very onset, the reason for opposing varying from allegations that proposal being publicity stunt to a means to siphon off kickbacks, and from the proposal being an impractical fantasy dreamt up by those who have no sense of ground reality, to a means to help the real estate mafia.

The 630 km line between Thiruvananthapuram and Kasargod, cutting across most districts would have made traveling faster, but at 1.80- lakh crore, the project was all set to become a financial white elephant. Realization seems to have finally struck that there are many alternatives that would ensure speedier travel at a far lesser cost: catamarans, quadrupling existing railway lines, mini-airports at all district headquarters, augmenting the existing highway network with more lanes and flyovers, and more are some of the possible options.

However, what is of concern here is the state already transferring Rs 17 crore to Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) for preparing the detailed project report. Needless to say, this is money down the drain, Worse, the government had also formed a public limited company- Kerala High Speed Rail Corporation Ltd - to implement the project, appointing an IAS officer as the managing director. This entire administrative jamboree is also substantial money down the drain. This reckless spending becomes even more grave when the government repeatedly claims to be short on funds to carry out infrastructural projects.

A basic no-frills flyover costs about 20 to 25 crores – and needless to say, there are many junctions in the state that cry for the same. The next time, say for instance, you are caught up in a traffic jam at Vytilla in Kochi, the busiest junction in the state, remember that a (toll-free) flyover could well have come up there had the government spend the money on something constructive rather than blow it away on a needless project report.

Good governance is doing something constructive on the ground, not announcing projects left, right and centre and blowing away the taxpayer's money on needless paperwork.