THIRUVANANTHAPURAM:
The aerial survey to identify the alignment of Kerala’s ambitious Thiruvananthapuram-Kasaragod Semi High-Speed Railway (SHSR) project has been successfully completed.
The aerial survey, which began on December 31, was for the entire 532 km stretch up to Thiruvananthapuram, marking the first vital step before commencing the work of the project, named Silver Line, which will reduce the end-to-end travel time across the state to four hours.
The first day of the survey was from Kannur to Kasaragod.The survey was completed in Thiruvananthapuram today (Sunday).
LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) aerial remote sensing method was used for the survey, conducted on a Partenavia P68 series aircraft that took off from Kannur International Airport (KIAL).The survey is being carried out by Hyderabad-based GeoKno India Pvt. Ltd., which had also conducted LiDAR survey for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project.
A joint venture of the Kerala Government and the Ministry of Railways, the project had obtained the in-principle approval of the Centre on December 17. The Civil Aviation Director General, and the Ministry of Defence had given clearance for the one-week-long survey, followed by the green signal from the Railway Ministry.
The special permission of the Ministry of Defence was required since the aircraft has to fly over highly-sensitive security zones, and it is also mandatory that Indian pilots should be assigned for duty.
According to V. Ajith Kumar, Managing Director, Kerala Rail Development Corporation Ltd, the implementing agency of the project, also called K-Rail, since the survey has been completed,this will enable K-Rail to prepare a detailed project report (DPR) and launch the final location survey soon.
K-Rail is a joint venture by the State government and the Central Railway Ministry. From Kasaragod to Tirur the Silver Line will run parallel to the existing railway track. From Tirur to Thiruvananthapuram, the line will pass separately from the existing railway line since that stretch has a large number of curves that hamper the speed.
The SHSR corridor is expected to reduce congestion and pollution on the roads, improve safety and considerably save the huge cost resulting from the dependence on imported oil. The airports at Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi will be connected with the SHSR. It will have 10 stations and a proposal to build short-distance feeder links to connect to other stations too is also on the cards. Trains will have a maximum speed of 200 km/h.
