Amid intense protests, Kerala govt to hold panel discussion on SilverLine

At a time when a fresh round of clashes erupted in the state after a gap over the laying of SilverLine survey stones, the Kerala government is getting ready to conduct a panel discussion involving experts who support and those who have raised technical objections and concerns regarding its flagship semi-high speed rail corridor project.

The two-hour-long discussion, scheduled tentatively on April 27 or 28 at the Mascot Hotel, will be moderated by K P Sudheer, state Principal Secretary (Science and Technology), official sources here said.

The programme is designed in the format of three experts speaking for the project and three experts speaking against it in the presence of 25-50 invited audience, they said. The media would reportedly be allowed to cover the debate.

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Alok Kumar Verma, a retired Chief Bridge Engineer who was part of preparing the preliminary feasibility report of the SilverLine alias K-Rail project but later raised a stiff objection, R V G Menon, a prominent environmental scientist, and Joseph C Mathew, social observer, were included in the panel of those speaking against the project.

Verma, who was here on Wednesday to meet Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and senior government officials to appraise the concerns regarding the mammoth infrastructure project, had told media that he did not get appointment for the meeting.

Coming down heavily on the Kerala Rail Development Corporation Limited (KRDCL), he alleged that the people of the state were going to be burdened by a project which may eventually cost Rs two lakh crore.

Subodh Jain, retired Member-Engineering, S N Raghuchandran Nair, president, Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Trivandrum) and Saji Gopinath, vice-chancellor, Kerala Digital University, have been included as panelists to speak in favour of the semi-high speed railway.

Interestingly, no one from the Anti-Silver Line People's Forum, a platform which spearheads protests across the state against the multi-crore infrastructure initiative, has been invited to the discussion.

The Pinarayi Vijayan government is coming up with the panel discussion on the K-Rail project at a time when they are facing intense protests from opposition parities and a section of local people, who may be affected by the initiative, against its implementation.

One of the major criticisms by the opposition Congress and BJP is that the Left government is not listening to the concerns of common people and the views of those who oppose it.

Resumption of the survey stone laying work for the project after a gap of almost one month was marred by protests on Thursday, with locals and anti-SilverLine activists clashing with the police in the state capital and northern Kannur, prompting authorities to halt the process temporarily.

Alleging police high-handedness against protesters, the opposition Congress came down heavily on the Vijayan government and urged it to stop action against common people and their party activists, who oppose the multi-crore project.

Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, V D Satheesan even drew a parallel between police action against the anti-Silver Line protesters in the state and the demolition drive in New Delhi and asked whether Left leader Brinda Karat was seeing this.

The SilverLine rail corridor, envisaged to cover a 530-kilometre stretch from Thiruvananthapuram to Kasaragod, is estimated to cost around Rs 64,000 crore.

The project aims to make transportation easy along the entire north-south of Kerala and reduce travel time to less than four hours as against 12-14 hours.