Kerala’s SilverLine project, a 529.45-km rail corridor connecting Thiruvananthapuram and Kasaragod with an operating speed of 200kmph, was meant to ease transport between the northern and southern parts of the state. Instead, it has now become a flashpoint for controversies.
Kerala Rail Development Corporation (K-Rail) is a joint venture between the Kerala government and the Indian Railways. The latter holds a 49% equity share in K-Rail Corporation. As a result, the Railways is concerned over sharing the overseas loan liabilities of the project.
The project, first announced 12 years ago, claimed it would reduce total travel time to less than four hours, compared to the present 10 to 12 hours between the two cities. With nine cars carrying 675 passengers, the train will run 18 trips daily. And it is expected to bring in Rs 2,256 crore from ticket fares, with a daily ridership of 79,934 commuters.
As per the detailed project report prepared in 2020 by Paris-headquartered Systra, the estimated cost of the project is around Rs 64,000 crore. However, recently, a Kerala High Court bench set aside a single bench order staying a land survey in connection with the social impact assessment for the project.
Earlier, the Kerala High Court, in an interim order, had stayed erection of concrete structures for the project. The order, issued on January 12, was based on a petition by three residents of Kottayam district. The petitioners had opposed the putting up of large concrete poles to mark the land surveyed for the SilverLine project, saying it was in violation of the Survey and Boundaries Act and these structures were blocking access to various individual properties. “Projects of the magnitude like that of SilverLine cannot be hurried or completed on war cries, rather they have to be carried out in accordance with the law if they need to have any legitimacy,” observed the single bench.
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Now, a bench of Chief Justice S Manikumar and Justice Shaji P Chaly, while acting on an appeal moved by the Kerala government challenging the interim stay on the survey, said: “The government is vested with adequate powers to conduct the survey, and mark the properties appropriately, for conducting the Social Impact Assessment (SIA) study after issuing appropriate notifications under the provisions of Kerala Survey and Boundaries Act, 1961.” The bench accepted the contention of the state government that the survey is for the purpose of demarcating the boundary of the project alignment for SIA study, and land acquisition comes only later.
“It is also submitted that concrete poles with marking ‘K-Rail’ are planted only with the objective of identifying the lands for evaluating social impact of acquisition and the state government has no intention to acquire the lands by planting the stones since the attempt of the government is only to carry out Social Impact Assessment study to protect the interest of the land owners, enabling them to take steps to object the SIA study by having a proper and clear picture of the extent of acquisition made in their properties,”
-said the Court.
It observed that the Union government’s approval is not required for pre-investment activities. Also, provisions of the Railways Act, 1989, do not apply as they cover only special projects covering one or more states, it said.
Regarding the issue, the railway minister informed the Parliament that SilverLine would hamper future railway expansion projects in Kerala and that the Indian Railways also may have to shoulder overseas loan liabilities on account of this project. Following this, K-Rail clarified that the fiscal burden of the SilverLine Project rests solely with the Kerala government. This fact has already been conveyed to the Railways, said a statement from K-Rail. “Considering the anxiety of the Railways, the K-Rail had officially conveyed to the Union Finance Ministry that the financial liabilities in future would be shouldered by the Kerala Government,” said K-Rail authorities.
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Responding to the centre’s concerns over future railway development in Kerala, K-Rail said that the Indian Railways had earlier informed it that it was planning no projects on the railway land through which SilverLine tracks would be laid. “SilverLine will not come near the railway track along this stretch,” stated K-Rail. Similarly, land would be acquired for SilverLine only along one side of the Tirur-Kasaragod railway track. “The Railways can lay another track on the other side,” said K-Rail authorities.
Herein, it is also important to analyse what will be the environmental impact of the project. A note uploaded on K-Rail website claims that rail projects are the most energy efficient and least polluting transportation models now available in the world.
Global transport emission in 2018 was around eight billion tons of CO2, which is about 24% of the total CO2 emissions from energy. Out of this, 75% of the transport emission comes from road vehicles, whereas CO2 emission from trains is 1%. It also adds that the land required for constructing this rail project is half of that of a national highway and can carry three times the national highway traffic, that too without any pollution. The requirement of natural resources like earth, boulders and sand, etc. will be relatively less, it claimed.
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The project will see 1- to 8-metre high embankments for some 292km, which is 55% of the route. Additionally, there will be tunnels, bridges, and viaducts. These constructions, allege critics, will hurt the environment severely.
Kerala Governor Arif Mohammad Khan is hopeful of this project. Referring to “Smart Enforcement” project in his address at the fourth session of the 15th Kerala Legislative Assembly on February 18, he said that “the Rs 63,794-crore SilverLine semi-high-speed rail project of K-RAIL will usher in an environment-friendly mode of transport as compared to fossil-fuel based commuting modes in the state and the state government expected an early approval for the project from the centre.”
—By Abhilash Kumar Singh and India Legal Bureau