In Kerala, mistrust is rising over the LDF Government’s ambitious SilverLine High-Speed railway corridor project. Discontent over the Rs 63,940 crore infrastructure project is rising across large sections of the state over land acquisition practices, ecological concerns and other issues and protests against CM Pinarayi Vijayan has been raging on.

What is the SilverLine Project ?

The LDF government in Kerala led by Pinarayi Vijayan has planned to lay down a high-speed railway corridor across the length of the state to enhance connectivity among the urban districts. The project aims at connecting the state capital of Thiruvananthapuram in the south with Kasaragod in the north. The corridor running through the length of the state is proposed to be 529.45 km long, connecting 11 districts. 

The track will run trains travelling at around 200 km/hr where one can travel from Thiruvanathapuram to Kasargoad in four hours, as opposed to the present 12-hour journey by railways. The Kerala Rail Development Corporation Limited (KRDCL) which is a joint venture between the Kerala government and the Union Ministry of Railways has set the deadline of the project in 2025.

According to the authorities, the project will run on nine-car electrical units which can transport 675 passengers in business and standard class settings at a go. With 11 stations in each of the districts, three stations will be elevated, one underground and the rest at grade. The authorities have said that there will be underpasses connecting service roads at every 500 metres of the corridor.

With the SilverLine Project, the state government thinks it can meet infrastructure demands for the future through the high-speed railway corridor aimed at enhancing connectivity. One of the main intentions has been to divert a significant load of traffic from the existing railway stretch and thus reduce congestion on roads owing to Kerala’s high-density population demands.

However, the project has met odds with citizens, policy experts and environmentalists since the very beginning. With Kerala’s high-density population and strict landholding patterns, land acquisition is the biggest challenge before the project. Opposition by environmentalists has also risen, concerning potential damage to the state’s ecological system in the path of the proposed route.

Unjust Land Acquistion Practices

Since the very announcement, the project has met with serious criticism from citizens, technical experts, urban planners and environmentalists. Moreover, citizens have now flagged the project over authorities maintaining secrecy while conducting surveys, while not taking them into consideration. The Indian Express has reported the criticism raised by locals from the Nooranad village in Alappuzha district when in 2019, a few men in the dead of night planted the rectangular stone block on a side of the road. When asked by a local resident Manjusha, the authorities replied that it was for widening the road. It was later when she found that the stone was placed concerning the SilverLine project.

While Land Acquisition remains the primary challenge before the government, it seems that the authorities are moving forward without taking citizens into consideration. Many people are unaware of the identification of their personal properties which have already been featured in the acquisition list published by the government. “In 2020, (one day when) we opened the local newspapers to find land survey numbers published as part of the K-Rail route alignment. That is how we found out that our homes would be razed,” said Subeesh, A painter whose two-year-old home falls on the proposed site. When he contacted the local village officer, he had no clue about the happenings.

When people like Manjusha and Subeesh raised their voices against the unjust acquisition practices employed by the communist regime, they were joined by ‘Samsthana K-Rail SilverLine Viruddha Janakeeya Samiti’, a group that is leading protests across the state against the project. In December last year, some protestors were slapped with charges of violating Covid-19 protocols and disrupting government work after a protest against survey officials recruited for the project had turned violent. There were also reports of usage of brute police force against the Samithi members including the beating of Santhosh, the Alappuzha district president.

While the government wants to do away with the challenges in land acquisition swiftly, it is to be noted that out of 1,383 hectares of land needed for the project, a whopping 1,198 hectares will be acquired from private lands.

KRAIL Silverline protest in Kerala. The authorities must be prepared to listen to the people in a democratic system, whether they are arrested or closed. The popular agitation is a platform for the people to express their views. Rulers need to have the mindset to understand this. pic.twitter.com/ILquyzLEGp

— Prasad K Velayudhan (@PrasadKVelayud1) January 24, 2022

Given Kerala’s land acquisition patterns where indebtedness over the construction of urban properties is unprecedented, land acquisition is one of the biggest problems faced while carrying out infra projects in the state. Since then large scale protests have erupted across the villages of Kerala where citizens are seen outraged over their concerns.

Ecological and Financial concerns

E Sreedharan, the ‘metro man’ and politician from the BJP has criticised the project calling it ‘ill-conceived’ and ‘lacking technical perfection’. While accusing the CM of hiding facts and underestimating the costs of the project, the veteran technocrat has suggested that the corridor must use broad gauge instead of the standard gauges. Questions are also being raised over the economic planning of the project while for a debt-ridden state to take up a project involving huge costs is no simple task. D Dhanuraj, who runs a public policy think tank in Kochi has questioned the need for the project while arguing that there is a minimal need for mass travel on a regular basis. “The government can’t think that all it has to do is ‘sell’ a dream to the public. The public is more informed these days and asks questions,” he said.

K P Kannan, a development economist has pressed the government over the need to invest in alternative transport models. He has suggested that besides having four airports in the state, a continuous railway line, the government can focus on developing the inland water system with the possibility of coastal shipping for large cargo.

Beyond this, the possibility of the project adversely impacting the ecosystem cannot be negated. Environmentalists fear an irreversible impact on the state’s rivers, paddy fields and wetlands, triggering floods and landslides in future due to construction activities and increased influx of population within the transit corridor. Many activists, ecological committees including the Kerala Paristhithi Aikya Vedi have requested the government to abandon the project and explore alternative sustainable solutions.

While the fate of the project depends severely on the ability of the authorities to address the issues and thus ramp up the land acquisition process, The Pinarayi Vijayan government is in no mood to stop. While responding to the criticism, CPM Rajya Sabha MP Elamaram Kareem has said, “The cost of such a project does not come from the state budget. Foreign funding agencies are willing to give out long-term loans at low interest.” Speaking on the ecological issue, Kareem has hit back at environmentalists by calling them ‘fundamentalists’ and has said that they oppose all development projects. He replied to the concerns stating, “If the rail route goes through wetlands and paddy fields, we will have an elevated stretch. Every 500 metres, there will be underpasses or overhead roads. There won’t be any environmental damage,”