The Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) under the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has granted Terms of Reference (ToR) for the Thiruvananthapuram greenfield outer ring road (ORR) project estimated at ₹8,398.46 crore. This will pave the way for the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) and public hearing process.

The EAC has also directed the project proponent to surrender the Environment Clearance (EC) earlier issued for the project to the State Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA). In March 2023, the EC for the Southern Ring of the project was issued by the SEIAA. Meanwhile, a debate has arisen over the procedure followed in obtaining EC for the Northern stretch after the SEIAA, in its latest meeting, is learnt to have declined, considering the EC application, citing that the project being a National Highway comes under Category A, for which clearance should be given by the Centre. The State Expert Appraisal Committee (SEAC), in a meeting held on November 14,2025, had decided to recommend EC for the project and forwarded the file to the SEIAA for the final clearance.

Sources said that the SEIAA has not considered the application since the stretch was notified as NH 866 in February 2023. As per the EIA notification, National Highway projects come under A category and state highways are enlisted under B category. The SEAC scrutinises category B projects for issuing EC. This project cannot be considered by the SEIAA as per the provisions, sources said. The minutes of the SEIAA meeting will be published soon.

The SEIAA's move has strengthened apprehensions that the project will be further delayed. The documents of the EAC however show that the project is covered under category A and the NHAI has already completed the preliminary steps towards getting EC from the centre. With the EAC directing the NHAI to surrender the EC to the SEIAA, even if SEIAA had issued a new EC, it would still have to be submitted back to the SEIAA.

The ToR was granted in the EAC meeting held on December 9. Technically, this is the first move towards obtaining an EC. It is learnt that the EAC directed the NHAI to surrender the EC obtained in 2023 since the project requires a single EC and two applications shouldn't be submitted for different stretches under the same project.

The ORR project has been on the high-priority list of the state government. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had held talks with the centre to expedite the land acquisition process. In a reply furnished in the parliament on July 31, 2025, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said that the alignment of the project which was initially finalised based on the feasibility report prepared by the Kerala Government was being reviewed, in consultation with the government to minimise hill cutting and to avoid ecological damage. The State Government had also exempted royalty on earth/boulders and reimbursement of state GST component in the project of Ernakulam Bypass, Kollam-Shenkottai Greenfield Corridor and Thiruvananthapuram ORR.

The proposal is for the construction of 4/6 laning of Navaikulam-Thekkada-Vizhinjam section of NH-866 with a total length of 62.70 km. The proposed alignment will have 45.00 m RoW (with service road) and 60.00 m RoW (with service and slip road). The project comprises 15 tunnels, 6 roads and 7 road access points. As per the conditions for ToR, the project proponent has been directed to provide details of the existing and proposed load-carrying capacity of the roads within the project area, as well as the anticipated load capacity after development of the Vizhinjam port. The assessment shall include design standards, axle-load considerations, traffic volume projections, and pavement strength.

While the NHAI already approached the EAC for receiving the ToR, it is not clear as to why another application was filed with the SEIAA to receive an EC especially when the project was listed as category A. NHAI officials did not comment for the article.