With a view to tapping growth alternatives, the State authorities will purchase round 600 acres on either side of the West Coast Canal that runs nearly parallel to the Arabian Sea and Nationwide Freeway masking round 10 coastal districts in Kerala. The State is trying to create growth alternatives in sectors resembling trade, renewable vitality, transport, tourism, commerce, and agriculture, for which non-public land should be made obtainable to the traders on the premise of the State’s public-private partnership (PPP) coverage.
The State authorities has authorised the proposal to rework the West Coast Canal into an financial commerce hall by inviting non-public traders to arrange enterprise. The Cupboard had not too long ago given approval to conduct a research for evaluation of financial growth alternatives alongside the 616 km-long WCC by dividing the challenge space into 13 reaches.
The target of the research is to consolidate the financial growth alternatives of particular person reaches to kind an total grasp plan and detailed challenge report for the waterway-oriented growth for the whole hall from Kovalam to Bekal. As soon as the grasp plan is ready for every attain, land parcels recognized for every growth alternative might be acquired by the federal government, for which ₹300 crore has been earmarked.
Land parcels
It’s estimated that land parcels are crucial in all the ten coastal districts alongside the WCC. About 30-60 acres of land have to be acquired in every district. For example, the State has already recognized round 70.7 acres of land between Akkulam in Thiruvananthapuram and Kollam. Since a lot of the land parcels recognized are underneath non-public possession, the federal government should purchase the land to woo traders and kick-start the assorted PPP tasks alongside the WCC hall, in line with S. Sureshkumar, chief engineer, Kerala Waterways and Infrastructure Ltd (KWIL), the particular goal automobile created for the rejuvenation of the inland waterways in Kerala.
Grasp plan
The estimated price for the preparation of the grasp plan is ₹12.24 crore, whereas the price of the estimated land acquisition is ₹287.76 crore. The challenge might be funded by means of the Kerala Infrastructure Funding Fund Board (KIIFB). The authorities are planning to carry the primary trial run of cargo vessels by means of the West Coast Canal from Thiruvananthapuram to Chettuva in Thrissur within the first part by the tip of 2024.