Potholes bring Kochi to a halt, invite wrath of common people

Thiruvananthapuram: After weeks of rain and landslides, Kerala is looking ahead to a happy Onam week but battered roads in its commercial capital have led to massive traffic snarls and a blame game between various authorities.

On Friday, thousands of commuters were held up on the Vytilla-Kundannoor stretch in Kochi and more traffic jams followed on Saturday as people came out for Onam shopping. There were many who were headed out of Kochi to their native places to spend the Onam vacation and got caught in the traffic for hours.

Public works department minister, G. Sudhakaran, who made a personal visit to Kundannoor, faced the ire of local people and shop keepers for the poor state of roads.

The minister, however, blamed the situation on the local administration, stating that the PWD was not responsible for the state of affairs.

“You should inquire about this to the district collector and district police chief. The PWD can only build roads; it is the duty of local administration to regulate traffic,” he said, implying that the traffic jams could not be blamed on the bad roads.

Sudhakaran claimed that the condition of roads in the state was “generally good”, and argued that when there was so much traffic and road work was going on there would be “some inconvenience”.

“Nowhere in the world will smooth tracks be provided in approach roads when flyovers are being constructed,” he argued.

On Friday, the Kochi police commissioner and his colleagues had attempted to fill some potholes in Kochi when traffic hold-ups clogged the city.

The traffic woes of Kochi have been aggravated by the ongoing construction work of two flyovers at Vytilla and Kundannoor, and the repair works to another one at Palarivattam which developed cracks within months of its commissioning.