Kerala Lawmaker Demands Revival of Elevated Highway Plan on National Highway Bypass

The parliamentarian argued that the existing at-grade bypass has become a bottleneck, recording accident rates three times the national average for comparable highways, while peak-hour traffic volumes exceed design capacity by nearly sixty percent. The elevated corridor proposal, first mooted in 2018, was shelved after the authority cited land-acquisition challenges and cost escalations that pushed the estimate beyond twenty-five billion rupees. Since then, the corridor has witnessed a surge in commercial and residential development along its flanks, further complicating any future land acquisition and raising the specter of indefinite delay.