Kerala govt suppressed actual completion cost of SilverLine: Sreedharan

The ruling CPI(M) in Kerala "suppressed" the actual completion costs of its ambitious semi-high speed rail project, SilverLine, to get approval for the same, 'Metroman' E Sreedharan said on Sunday.

Sreedharan, who has proposed an alternative to the SilverLine, said the state government projected a completion cost of around Rs 64,000 crore, by excluding various estimates like the price of the wall to be built to prevent trespass onto the rail route and the hundreds of overbridges to connect both sides along the tracks.

"According to our calculations, the completion cost of the SilverLine project was around Rs 1.15 lakh crore. They (state government) suppressed it to get the project approved," he told PTI.

Sreedharan also contended that the Detailed Project Report (DPR) was cobbled together hastily without carrying out various investigations, like soil inspections, properly and even the actual land required for the entire project was not shown.

"Lot of things in the K-Rail project lacked transparency. Which is why I objected to it," he contended.

Giving details of his proposal, the Metroman said the alternative rail system proposed by him would be high speed with the tracks being both elevated and underground, but not on the surface.

"The number of stations would be more, around 12, as compared to the K-Rail project as then only it would benefit the people," he said.

However, in his plan, the line would end at Kannur as against Kasaragod under the SilverLine project.

"The difference in length would be around 80 kilometres. We decided not to extend the line till Kasaragod as our initial surveys indicated fewer people from there would use it," he said.

The total travel time is expected to be around three-and-a-half hours, he added.

Sreedharan said he was yet to get a response from the Left front government and it was probably due to the reason that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan was unwell.

While the opposition Congress in the state is yet to comment on the alternative suggested by Sreedharan, the BJP unit in Kerala said the government has to first say whether it would accept the new proposal or not.

"Pinarayi Vijayan and his party has to make that clear. If they reject the earlier project and are willing to apologise to the people, then we have no problem in having discussions (regarding the new proposal)," BJP state president K Surendran said.

Leader of Opposition in the Assembly V D Satheesan too said Congress would await what the government has to say about the new proposal before reacting.

He said the opposition does not jump to conclusions and reacts only after doing proper research and holding discussions with experts on the topic.

Satheesan said it has to be seen what is the DPR, the estimated costs, will it affect the environment and after these issues are clarified, then only would the Congress take a stand on the issue.

He said the SilverLine was opposed as it was allegedly disastrous for the environment and would cripple the state financially.

The ambitious K-Rail semi-high-speed rail project of the Left government in Kerala, which was on the backburner for want of permissions from the Union government, was back in the news following a report tabled by Sreedharan to Vijayan on the rail system.

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

The opposition Congress and the BJP in Kerala have been protesting against the SilverLine project, saying it will affect the families who will be displaced due to its implementation.