The land acquisition process for  the proposed Outer Ring Road (ORR) project around Kerala’s capital Thiruvananthapuram has begun.

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and revenue department have started laying the boundary stones along the project’s alignment.

The Government is planning to develop ORR as four lane (expandable upto six lane) highway for a length of about 77.7 km and around 348.09 hectares will be acquired for the project.

This project is further bifurcated into Northern Ring (29 Km) and Southern Ring (47.9 Km) alignments.

While the northern ring between Navaikulam and Thekadda, the southern ring which is further divided into two sections is between Mangalapuram and Vizhinjam.

Section-1 of the southern ring is 35.3 km long and is between Thekadda to Vizhinjam Bypass. Another section is 12.6 km long between Thekadda to Mangalapuram.

In the first phase, the stone laying will be done along the stretch from Vizhjinam to Navaikulam and it will be done for Thekkada-Mangalapuram stretch in the second phase.

“The stone-laying procedure started from the Vizhinjam side. If the residents raise objections, we will listen to their problems and come up with a solution. The ORR will also have service roads,” P Pradeep, project director, NHAI told The New Indian Express.

Ring Road To Transform Thiruvananthapuram

This ORR project is a greenfield access-controlled project on the outer area of Thiruvananthapuram city on the eastern side only as the Arabian sea is located on the western side of this coastal city.

The 4-lane highway will be enhanced to six lane highway as and when the traffic count qualifies for six lane requirements.

This ORR is significant as it connects two major economic growth hubs i.e Technopark and Technocity complex on the northern side and Vizhinjam Port complex on the Southern side of Thiruvananthapuram.

Beside four lane main carriage way (expandable up to six lanes), the project includes provision of two lane service lanes on both sides and an additional two lanes for Mass Rapid Transit Systems to be built as per future need.

With the under-construction Vizhinjam international sea port in the Southern side of Thiruvananthapuram and developments in Techno city area on the far northern side, it is expected that there shall be strong stimulus to secondary development in support service sectors such as residential, hospitality, healthcare, education and commercial developments in the surrounding region.

Therefore, ORR is necessary to upgrade the road infrastructure in these areas and also create suitable logistic hubs to cater to the parking and goods handling requirements of the port bound traffic.