Kochi : The high court has directed the railway authorities to take appropriate steps within a fortnight on the KSEB’s application seeking permission to shift the electric poles jutting onto the road near the Pachalam overbridge to railway property to ease traffic congestion in the area.
During the previous hearing, however, the court noted conflicting submissions by the corporation and the KSEB regarding sanction of the Rs 1.60 lakh required for the project and directed the officials to be present before the bench. Traffic snarls had developed at Pachalam junction, where Chathiyath Road intersects Mathai Manjooran Road, due to electrical installations put up by the KSEB, according to the petitioner. A bench of Chief Justice Soumen Sen and Justice V M Syam Kumar issued the order in a PIL filed by Sujith C Sukumaran of Pachalam in Kochi seeking to ease traffic congestion at the Pachalam junction. It was further submitted that removing them would ease the traffic bottleneck.
The Kochi corporation additional secretary and the KSEB executive engineer were personally present before the court on Wednesday in compliance with its previous directive.