PINARAYI'S SILVER BULLET

The K-Rail SilverLine, a semi high-speed rail network that traverses the length of the state, is CM Pinarayi Vijayan’s most ambitious and controversial project. Will it cement his legacy or ruin it?

- Jeemon Jacob

IF THERE WAS EVER A WILLING endorsement of the Argumentative Indian, it would be the Malayali on the street. The latest bee in their bonnet is the K-Rail SilverLine, Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s pet semi high-speed rail project which, when launched, will traverse the length of the state—Thiruvananthapuram to Kasargod—and cut travel time from the current 12 hours by train to about four.

The ambitious Rs 63,941 crore project of the Ker ala Rail Development Corporation Ltd (KRDCL) or K-Rail, a joint venture between the state and the Union railways ministry, will have trains running at 200 kmph to cover the 529.45 km distance. An alternative transport system that can reduce the load on the state’s roads has long been an obsessive preoccupation for urban planners. But the opposition camp, including the Congress and BJP and everyone in between, is up in arms, saying the project is ‘ill-conceived and unsustainable’. The affected families who could lose home and hearth are also on the warpath, even as the government goes about with its social impact assessment survey. In fact, the dreaded yellow stone markers, put down to denote the land the SilverLine trains will pass through, have become the new focus of protests—of the 5,500-odd placed so far, more than 300 have been ‘uprooted’ despite the government warning of consequences.

THE ROADBLOCKS