After protests, Centre has second thoughts on SilverLine: Pinarayi

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has dropped hints that the controversial Silver line project would be placed on the backburner. He said that the Centre seems to be having second thoughts about the Rs 63,000-crore project.

"The Centre, which was once in favour of the project, was now having second thoughts in the wake of the protests against the SilverLine project," the chief minister said while delivering the inaugural speech of the Nava Kerala workshop held at the EMS Academy in the outskirts of Thiruvananthapuram. He said this would adversely affect the development of Kerala and said the UDF and the BJP should shoulder all the blame for the consequences.

The chief Minister's remark sounded like a major climb down from his stated position. Earlier, before the Thrikkakara byelection, Pinarayi was so hawkish that he had had said that the LDF government would go ahead with the project even if the Social Impact Assessment study was against its implementation.

The LDF government had also gone to the Thrikkakara polls with SilverLine as its major poll plank. It was expected that Thrikkakara, being an urban constituency with seeming gains from the high speed project, would give a big thumbs up to the LDF, and by extension to the SilverLine project. As it turned out, the CPM candidate lost by a record margin.

It is also felt that any attempts to move ahead with the SilverLine project at this juncture, when the resurfacing of the gold smuggling scandal has set off statewide protests, would give the UDF a moral high ground.

The ambitious K-Rail project, also known as the SilverLine, is expected to reduce journey time from Thiruvananthapuram to Kasaragod from 12 hours to just 4 hours. The Left government had on January 15 published the Detailed Project Report (DPR) of the project with an estimated cost of Rs 63,941 crore. The semi-high speed rail line would have 11 stations.

However, the project has run into rough weather with the Congress-led opposition UDF and the BJP mounting protests against it and claiming that the state government was not listening to the concerns of the common people and views of those opposing the same apart from the high cost involved.