Kerala has the highest road density in the country in terms of route-length per sqkm. It also has the highest vehicle density, if metropolitan cities like New Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai are excluded.

Meanwhile, Kerala also tops in the number of road accidents per sqkm, with fatalities touching 8,000/year. With Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala, located almost at the southern end, and commercial capital Kochi situated in the north, the travel pattern in the State is predominantly in the north-south direction.

The two corridors of transportation that are currently available - the railway line and the national highways - have not been able to handle the heavy traffic. There was a proposal to construct a separate eight-lane motorway from Kasargod to Thiruvananthapuram, to augment the north-south transport capacity. However, it had to be abandoned due to opposition to land acquisition from the public.

It is in the above context that the government considered a high-speed railway line, from Thiruvananthapuram to Kannur, which could later be extended to Kasargod and Mangaluru as well. A feasibility study on the high-speed railway line was carried out by the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), and a report was submitted to the State Government in September 2011. Subsequently, the report was accepted by the government and the DMRC started preparation of a detailed project report (DPR). The DPR will be ready for submission to the government in March 2016.

Advantages

The main advantage of the high-speed railway line over the eight-lane motorway is that width of the land needed to be acquired is only 20 metre in the case of the railway, against 70 metre needed for the motorway. The carrying capacity of the high-speed rail is almost double that of the motorway. In railway, the cost for one passenger/km is only 1/6 of the cost in road transport.

Further, there will be no pollution, no road accidents and the travel time will be much lesser compared to the motorway.

Speed Does Matter

When the speed of a train exceeds 200 km/hour it is called a high-speed train. The speed of trains on the existing railway tracks is limited to 80-100 km/hour due to the sharp curves and weak formations. High-speed trains cannot be operated on the existing tracks as the speed cannot be increased.

In the case of the national highways, efforts to widen them would meet with severe resistance as there is dense habitation on their sides. The route of the proposed high-speed railway line has therefore been identified away from the two existing travel corridors, further to the east, mainly traversing through sparsely occupied areas.

The high-speed railway will have a speed potential of 350 km/hour, and the distance from Thiruvananthapuram to Kollam could be covered in 20 minutes - Thiruvananthapuram-Kochi in 53 minutes; Thiruvananthapuram-Kozhikode in 98 minutes and Thiruvananthapuram-Kannur in two hours.

The detailed survey has shown that the total area to be acquired will be 600 hectares, of which private land accounts for 450 hectares. The total number of affected structures will be only 3868 along the entire length, and affected trees about 37,000.

The technology for operating high-speed trains is currently not available in the country. For the proposed Thiruvananthapuram-Kannur line, what is needed is a strategy that is in line with the MoU signed by the Central Government with the Japanese Government for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed railway line.

In that case, about 85 per cent of the project cost and technology could be sourced from Japan, with a moratorium of ten years and repayment period of another 30 years on a low interest rate of only 0.3 per cent. Then, the investment of the Central Government will be only around `7,500 crore, and that of the State Government only about 15,000 crore.

It is expected that the high-speed railway line would bring down road accidents by almost 30 per cent, saving around 2,400 lives every year. This alone is an ample justification for opting for high-speed rail. I am of the view that a high-speed railway line from Thiruvananthapuram to Kannur would change the face of Kerala, ushering in a new era of economic development in the State.