The High Profile Project

It was an evening in 1995. I was packing up to leave my office in Cochin Port Trust in Willingdon Island. Chief Engineer, Sri V.G.Koshy asked me casually: “I am going to the office of the Corporation of Kochi. Are you coming?” I was curiously interested. “What is cooking?” I asked. “There is a meeting to discuss the Goshree Project.” He wanted company. ‘Goshree’ was the in thing in those days, occupying most of the media attention. Besides, I had been hearing about the hi-tech components of the project. I was certainly interested since it was connected with my profession. But I was also busy doing the thesis work for my doctorate. However since the Corporation office was on my way home, I joined Sri Koshy. Inside the Mayor’s chamber, for the first time, I met Sri Thomas Mathew, IAS. He was the District Collector, holding charge of the Mayor. He appeared to be quite a dynamic personality. There was quite a gathering in the room. One could not fail to notice the dreamy atmosphere in the air. The conversation centered around the facilities that would be created in the Thanthonni Island. The picture evolved was that of high rise buildings, vide roads, posh water-fronts, marine drives and even canals. Speculations were also ripe about the rich Americans who would be occupying the plush penthouses on the island! Sri Thomas Mathew was discussing the intricacies of the cable stayed bridges arch bridges with the members. As time wore on, I could make out that perhaps I was the only one there who had really seen and understood a cable stayed bridge. There was a definite buoyant mood there. This was representative of the mood in the city whenever the topic of Goshree came up.

Many in the city and around were enthusiastic about the massive project. As usual in Kerala, many were also against. Many welcomed it because it was slated to give a face-lift to Kochi. For the islanders, a connection to the mainland was a long cherished dream. Some took a stand against the project because of their political affiliations. Some upheld the environmental angle. Often, one was camouflaged by the other. Strangely, some islanders under the banner of an organization called Swasraya Vypeen, chose to oppose the connections.

The idea of a self-supporting project, for connecting Vypeen with the Ernakulam mainland, was mooted by Sri Thomas Mathew as soon as he became collector of the district. M/s City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO), Bombay was made the consultants. It was CIDCO who formulated the project. Even though CIDCO was the consultant, there was somebody in Cochin who was working very hard for the project. Sri Simon Mathew at that time was Executive Engineer in Corporation of Cochin. He was doing all the running around. He was single handedly doing all the laison work with various agencies. But for his perseverance, the project would not have made any headway. The project cost was estimated to be Rs507 crores. There has to be an arrangement for execution of the project. It was decided that the execution would be done under the banner of a Town planning Authority. The name of this Authority was proposed as Cochin Islands Development Authority (CIDA). But the then Chief Secretary held that the old name of Cochin was ‘Goshree’ and so it would be most appropriate that the authority is known by that name. Thus Goshree Islands Development Authority (GIDA) was born in 1994. Sri K.Karunakaran was the Chief Minister of the state at that time. Sri Thomas Mathew’s nearness to the chief minister helped the authority’s activities to a great extent. But this had its repercussions later on. According to its constitution, GIDA had Chief Minister as the Chairman (ex-officio). Minister for Local Administration was Deputy Chairman. District Collector, Ernakulam was the ex-officio Secretary. Chief Secretary of the state and three other secretaries were members. Local M.P. and M.L.A.s of three adjacent constituencies were also members.

The Goshree Project

As mentioned earlier, Goshree Project was a high profile one. A lay out of the project is given in Figure 1. The State Government and GIDA lacked financial resources to undertake a massive bridge building project. So a self-supporting Scheme had to be evolved. It was estimated to cost Rs507 crores .The project envisaged reclamation of 190 hectares of land around Thanthonni Group of Islands and 60 hectares of land on the western side of Bolghatty Island. It was also proposed to connect these islands by 4 bridges namely Ernakulam Mainland to Thanthonni, Thanthonni to Bolghatty, Bolghatty to Vallarpadom and Vallarpadom to Vypeen islands. The total length of the 4 bridges carrying four-lane carriage way was arrived at as 2375 metres. The components of the project were: 1)Construction of four bridges, 2)Construction of Ernakulam – Vypeen road, Arterial and other link road network (total length about 20 kms.), 3)Dredging of the channel and Reclamation of around 250 ha of land around Thanthonni and Bolghatty Islands, 4)Other allied works incidental to the project. Bridge A and D were to be Arch bridges, Bridge B a Continuous Girder bridge and Bridge C a Cable stayed bridge. The reclamation would be done by hydraulic filling from the dredged material from backwater channels topped up by granular material brought from outside. This work included construction of a wall of rubble mound structure placed on single or double layer fascine mattress all around the area of reclamation. Once the reclamation wall is constructed, the dredged material is pumped in and is allowed to settle to achieve the required level. Other works included the incidental works related to the execution of the project such as rehabilitation of existing boat jetties, access roads to the existing islands during construction, maintenance of existing channels in the islands, reclamation of land near Vypeen, development of construction site etc.

It was proposed to execute this project utilizing the land as resource for raising finance. The Contractor would be compensated in terms of land on long lease that will be quoted in the tender for the execution of the works. This has a multiple advantage to the entrepreneurs. The land allotted to the entrepreneur can be developed by them within the framework of approved Land-use plan and other development control rules. The leased land could be sub-leased in the open market as per the land disposal policy of the Authority. The appreciation in land price will be considerable over the period of completion of the work by which the entrepreneur can maximize the profits. The investment in the project would ensure higher return than any other real estate in the country.

Consultants

CIDCO appointed M/s Dhar Consultants for doing detailed design of bridges. Detailed reports on the formulation of the project was drawn out by M/s CIDCO assisted by M/s Dhar Consultants. The successive directors of CIDCO at that time were Sri B.B.Sarma, Sri R.C.Sinha and later on Sri Nalinakshan. Sri Jha was Transportation Planner. Sri Srinivasan was the main bridge designer from Dhar Consultants. The evolution of the project took place in Bombay. But lot of deliberations used to take place in Cochin. Two important committees were made at that time – Technical Committee and the Environment Committee. These committees used to deliberate on the project in general. When a CIDCO official came to Cochin, there used to be more facts than fiction passed on. After my participation in that meeting at the Corporation of Cochin, I was also nominated to the Technical Committee. Official formalities were being completed fast. An expert committee from the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MOEF), Delhi visited the site and Environmental clearance for the project was obtained from the Ministry of Environment & Forests, New Delhi on 10th May, 1995.

Legal Battle

As is usual in Kerala, the project was taken to the court of law. The allegation was that the Environmental clearance accorded to the project was invalid and the project violated the Coastal Regulation Zone Notification, 1991. The project ran into rough weather even during the initial stages. Original Petition (OP) was filed against the execution of the project by Society for Social Welfare in the Hon’ble High Court in May 1994 pointing out that the proposed reclamation was against Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification 1991 and would result in environmental degradation. The O.P. was dismissed on admission. A Writ Appeal (W.A.) was filed against this decision. The Division Bench dismissed the writ when the government stated that the reclamation would be confined to the bridge supports only. The statement was a mistake. When this was realised, the government pleaded that the writ be heard afresh. So the writ was later heard afresh and dismissed on 15.03.1996. A Special Leave Petition was filed against this in the Supreme Court. In September, 1996, Smt Maneka Gandhi filed an Interlocutory Application (I.A.) in the Supreme Court against five projects (Goshree in Kerala, Kojentrix in Karnataka, Bandra – Kurla complex and Paper pulp factory in Maharashtra and Sanghi Cements in Gujarat) all over India, alleging CRZ violations. The I.A. and the SLP were taken up in the Apex court for hearing. The legal battle shifted from Kochi to the distant Delhi.

Change in Leadership

Work on the project was never stayed at any stage by the court. So, in effect, things could move on the execution side. Three major projects were being taken up at that time in the vicinity of Kochi. They were the Cochin Civil Airport and the Jawaharlal Nehru International Stadium apart from Goshree Project. Politically, all these projects had the banner that they were Karunakaran’s projects. So political affiliations also became critical for the future of the project. Sri Karunakaran had to step down as Chief Minister in 1996. Sri A.K.Antony succeeded him. Lot of changes were brought about in the administrative set up. Sri Thomas Mathew was transferred. Dr K.M.Ahraham was brought in. Since there were allegations about the manner in which things were going on in GIDA earlier, Dr K.M.Abraham was very cautious. The technical and environmental committees of GIDA were dissolved. He took into confidence only Mr Simon Mathew.

One night, I got a call from the collector. I was fetched by Sri Simon Mathew to the camp office. Dr Abraham asked me various matters connected with the project. General things about bridges were also discussed. Sri A.K.Antony declared that his government is for implementing the Goshree Project; but the cost of the project would be scaled down. This meant that the project would not be a high profile one. Negotiations were to be made with CIDCO, since they were still the consultants. The consultancy charges, which was over Rs60 crores had to be brought down. GIDA did not have any staff at that time. There was an office at the old collectorate complex. A town planner, a deputy town planner, a peon and a driver occupied that office. For handling the preliminaries of a project of this magnitude, GIDA needed technical services. Thus started a special routine for me. After my work in Cochin Port, I used to arrive at the Camp office of the collector by 7 o’clock in the evening. There had been days when I left at one o’clock in the early morning along with Simon Mathew. I even attended two negotiations with CIDCO in Bombay. At that time, Sri Nalinakshan took charge as Managing Director of CIDCO. He had a soft corner for the state he hailed from and things were looking up.

Change of Government

History has it that, at this juncture, Marxist government came to power in Kerala. Outwardly, the scenario did not show any drastic changes. Dr Abraham went about putting things together. During one of those days, in the latter part of July, 1996, the collector approached Chairman, Cochin Port Trust, Sri C. Babu Rajeev and requested that my services may be spared to GIDA. The Chairman readily agreed. Cochin Port was very much interested in this project. One of the islands, which would be connected, was Vallarpadom. This was the site of the proposed International Container Transhipment Terminal. The only disadvantage of Vallarpadom was that it was not connected to the mainland. The Goshree project would remove this handicap. So, on 1st August 1996, I took charge as Project Manager of GIDA.

Pre-qualification

On joining, GIDA, I realised, that I had a very special project on my hands. There was a lot of controversy as well. There was attendant media attention also. I was also faintly aware that there was a lot of talk about the various aspects of Goshree project till then. People only talked about the project, but not a single concrete step was taken for its implementation. I took the first step – started the process of pre-qualification of tenderers for carrying out the work. Pre-qualification notice was issued in the newspapers. Pre-qualification documents were printed. Sale of documents commenced from 30th August 1996, that is, exactly 30 days from my taking over. It is memorable that on the first day of the sale, the Action Council for Vypeen bridges handed over bouquets to all those who came to pick up pre-qualification documents. The action council was an Association, whose goal was to make Vypeen bridges a reality. Convener of the council was Advocate Majnu Komath. The council had persons from all walks of life mainly from those islands. Their main resource was abundant enthusiasm. They relentlessly kept up pressure for the bridges. Just before the sale of pre-qualification documets, Dr K.M. Abraham was transferred to the Secretariat. Sri V.P. Joy took charge as District Collector and Secretary of GIDA.

Legal battle – 2nd stage

Just then, the second stage of the legal battle was about to start. The scene was the Supreme Court at Delhi. The I.A. filed by Smt Maneka Gandhi was taken up for hearing. I had to rush off to Delhi. Till then, I did not have any familiarity with any court. It was ironical that my maiden experience was with the Apex Court itself. In Delhi, I teamed up with Kerala Government’s standing council Sri G. Prakash. I had to prepare the affidavit to be filed by the Kerala government. The petition was against CRZ violation. So I started studying the CRZ Notification of 1991 and its subsequent amendments. The notification was all about tidal water bodies, High Tide Line, Low Tide Line and other lines set off from those lines. Perhaps my background on hydrodynamics as my Doctorate thesis at the I.I.T, Bombay helped me on this account. Later on, I was acclaimed as an authority on CRZ Notification. I was also able to author a few papers – one in an International Conference – on the subject. Being an Engineer basically, I dealt with the affidavits also in an analytical manner. I used to include sketches illustrating the extent and position of CRZ in the affidavits. I had to do all these sitting in the hard winter of Delhi. The procedure was that detailed affidavits were prepared by me and faxed to the Secretariat for approval. Dr K.M. Abraham, who was by then in the Finance Department, used to get it vetted by the law department and fax it back. An officer from the Secretariat used to come down to sign it on behalf of the government. Many a time, I used to type it myself to meet the stiff deadlines fixed. The case had come up in Court No 2. The bench was headed by Justice Kuldip Singh. Against us, on the other side, was none other than Magsay award winner Advocate M.C.Metha. The bench was known as the ‘green’ bench and the petitioner’s advocate was known as ‘green’ Metha. We were in for trouble! With Prakash, I was going around meeting advocates after advocates in Delhi. We spent days (nights) with Advocate Rajeev Dhavan, a jurist. We had extensive discussions with Adcocate Ashok Desai who was the attorney general of India at that time. We had briefing sessions with Advocate K.K.Venugopal. Once, Dr K.M. Abraham came to Delhi to participate in the proceedings. Sitting in the office room of Advocate K.K. Venugopal, he said “I came because I have an obligation to Dr Chandramohan. I was the one who got him into this.” Sitting there, he commented “ Doctor, I appreciate your tenacity.” I then had the feeling that my stubborn follow-up of the case created difficulties for Dr Abraham also. But in the freezing cold and unfamiliar circumstances of Delhi I was going forward with a grim determination. I was aware that the people of Vypeen were depending on me. I could see their faces with expectant anticipation. I was not going to let them down. The Hon Court at one stage directed National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) to examine the five projects under allegation. The day NEERI submitted their report to the Court was a depressing day for me. They had reported that all the five projects, if implemented, would do irrepairable damage to the environment. They had ruled out all the five projects. The report was so fundamentalistic that there was no way there could have been any decision clearing the projects. (In fact, it is part of history that all the five projects were latter on cleared for execution) On 12th December 1996 the case came up for hearing. We had Advocate K.K. Venugopal representing us. Ashok Desai appeared for the Government of India. Kapil Sibal came in for the Government of Gujarat. At the end of the hearing, the I.A was sent to the respective High Courts, which had jurisdiction over the area. The Apex court felt that High Courts would be in a better position to understand the local scenario. The SLP was kept in suspended animation in the Supreme Court. We were overjoyed. Dr Abraham, who was present, asked K.K. Venugopal whether he would appear for us in the High Court at Cochin. He expressed his inability.

Market Response

12th January 1997 is an important day in the history of Vypeen bridges. On that day, the pre-qualification bids received by GIDA for the project were opened. The qualifying criteria stipulated resources in four fields. The firm should obviously have experience in construction of such bridges as were envisaged. They should have experience in road construction also. Since the project involved about 10 million cubic metres of dredging and reclamation, the tenderer should have resources in that field as well. Funds are to be advanced by the firm for the construction and only land will be provided at a later stage. So they should have financial resources also. In fact, this will necessitate a consortium of firms with varied expertises. It was evident that the construction companies did not like the arrangement. Only one Company tried to satisfy the requirements. Others said that they were interested only in their area of specialisation. Nobody was interested in land. The response from the market was very poor. The project failed to evoke enthusiasm from investors. It was unmistakable that the market had rejected the project outright as an investment proposition. We could not go into the tendering stage with that kind of response. In one sentence, if the case ended the next day, we did not have a project to go ahead to build the Vypeen bridges. We had the unenviable situation of defending in the court, a project, which we knew would never be implemented. The only thing, which kept the project alive then, was the cases filed by the environmental activists.

Beginning of New Project

It took me a few days to recover from the shock. I realised with dismay that I was in GIDA only to fight the cases. But I did not want to let go. I decided that I had a mission. That was to build the Vypeen bridges. The people in the islands were waiting for the bridges. I have to somehow go forward. But there was no self-supporting project to build the bridges. There was no point in depending on CIDCO. They were under the shock of their project being rejected by the market. Normally, a government servant will depend on a consultant for formulation of a project. As he goes on with this spoon-feeding for years he would lose all his technical prowess acquired in the college days. I thought that I was equal to or better equipped than CIDCO as far as Vypeen bridges were concerned. I set about studying the shortfalls of the Goshree Project. Why was the project rejected by the investing public? I tried to recollect reactions of the public during the last few months. I remembered that during the formulation of the project there was high euphoria all around. The attitude was that if somebody had a bright idea, come forward! It will be included in the project. Do not worry about the cost. The land is to pay for everything. I decided that I would not be carried away by any euphoria. I will not build castles in the air. My father taught me not to waist my life on dreams. I wanted to make a down-to-earth project, which would be realistic. I tried to learn from past experience.

I recollected that many people used to ask me a question. The cost of the high profile bridges is only Rs180 crores. How is it that the project cost is Rs507 crores? I analysed the mechanism of a project becoming self-supporting. This is a project, where the core project is the bridges and the supporting project is the land reclamation. The bridges and roads together with the land reclamation make up the total self-supporting project. If the project is to be self-supporting, then the cost should be supported by the sale proceeds of land. As an example, let us say, the bridges and roads cost Rs50 crores. Suppose 10 hectares of land is reclaimed, and if that land yields Rs50 crores, the project is self-supporting. But if the cost of reclamation is say, Rs10 crores, then, we require Rs60 crores for the project. For raising Rs60 crores, 2 hectares more land is to be reclaimed. Then the cost of reclamation becomes Rs12 crores. This will put up the project cost to Rs62 crores. Again more area is to be reclaimed to raise this amount. This is leading to a chain reaction of diverging cost. All this leads to the general principle, that one rupee increase in the core project will lead to three rupee increase in the total project. I also deduced that it works the other way also – if one rupee is cut down in the core project, then there will be a three rupees reduction in the total project. It was imperative that the cost of the core project should be kept to a minimum. So I went about it methodically.

1. Vypeen was on the west of the Ernakulam mainland. In the Goshree project, major reclamation was to be around Thanthonni island on the north. This had to be connected for yielding high land prices. So, instead of going directly to the west, the first bridge was aligned to the north. This had increased cost of the project. I decided that I would not deviate from the shortest path. So, I shifted the reclamation area from Thanthonni to the Ernakulam mainland. This reduced the number of bridges to three. (Later on I had to withstand substantial pressure from those who had purchased land in Thanthonni in anticipation.)

2. Shifting the reclamation area achieved another goal. The cost of reclamation was also to be cut. The site of reclamation was shifted to the Ernakulam Marine Drive where the unit price of land was high. This helped in cutting down the extent of reclamation drastically. Secondly, unlike in the case of Thanthonni, the reclaimed land did not require a bridge connection. So reclamation became independent of bridge construction. The price of this land did not depend on any bridge connection. Besides, the length of reclamation enclosure reduced drastically as now it reduced to extending the mainland rather than enclosing and island.

3. I found that in the previous project, the waterway between Ernakulam and Thanthonni reclamation was only 180 metres but the crossing was by a 550 metre long bridge! This, I realised, was because of the marine drives, which were being over-passed by the bridge. So, to keep the bridge length to a minimum, marine drives under the bridges had to be dispensed with.

4. For the traffic envisaged, four lane bridges were not required. This was reduced to two lanes, cutting down the cost drastically.

5. The quantity of reclamation reduced from 10 million to just 85,000 cubic metres. Indian Companies could do a work of this magnitude. This would increase competition and cut costs.

6. The arrangement of barter did not find favour with either the construction firms or real estate companies. So this was dispensed with. Government could easily execute a project of this magnitude and market the reclaimed land for pay back.

I was in a precarious situation in those days. On one side, I was fighting the cases in the court defending the old project. On the other side, I was preparing a new project for whatever reason. Of course, this was done with utmost secrecy.

I did not have any engineering staff working with me in GIDA. Some drawings were to be made and estimate was to be prepared. For a brief period, a lady joined me as a trainee at the right time – Rashmi. She could get valuable experience working on the project. I formulated the project in isolation. I wanted a second opinion on the financial viability of this project. I wanted to find out a person who was down to earth and practical. Who could think about realities, not fantasies. Finally I zeroed in on old friend – Rajan Mampilly. He was a shrewd businessman. It was only incidental that he happened to be from Vypeen. So, one day I went over to him. I had a confidential but frank talk with him. I decided to go forward. With the latest available rates of bridge construction, the estimate came to Rs68 crores! My theory of convergence of cost if the core project is optimised was proved correct by this spectacular example. Later on, when the project was made public, there was disbelief all around!! There was the same question from all quarters. Do you mean to say that you can replace a project of Rs507 crores with one of Rs68 crores? Everybody without exception said that it was impossible. They simply did not believe it. Common man could not understand estimates. They were only guided by the figure of Rs507 crores. The old Goshree project was so much engraved in their minds. I remember that in those days, it was difficult for me to utter this figure to anybody. I adopted a strange reasoning. I took them back in time. I reminded them. “In those days, you were disapproving Rs507 crores with equal disbelief. If you forget the earlier amount, then you will not have difficulty in coming to terms with 68 crores. In any case, I need only 68 crores to build the Vypeen bridges.” As time passed, people forgot 507 and accepted 68. Later, the estimate was updated to Rs84 crores taking into account the latest rates for completing Varapuzha bridge. A small report on the project was prepared. I then had a presentable document. It took me about three months. I was ready in April 1997. I remember that the first person I explained the project to was Sri K. Balachandran, Chairman, Greater Cochin Development Authority at that time. Then I explained the details to Sri V.P. Joy, District Collector. The Collector advised “It would have been all right if this project was prepared by somebody else. You are the project director of GIDA. If you come out with an alternative project, it will be construed that you are trying to torpedo the present project. So keep this under lock. We will bring it out at the right time.” Well, I kept the project locked up for the next three months. Nobody knew anything about it.

New Goshree Project

Let me give an outline of the project, which I had formulated. The Project proposed to reclaim 25 hectares of land at the northern end of the Marine Drive on the Ernakulam mainland. The proposed connection to Vypeen will pass through the islands of Bolghatty and Vallarpadom from this reclaimed land. The first bridge will be 370 metre long linking the reclaimed land at Ernakulam mainland, to Bolghatty Island. The second bridge, 578 metre long will connect Bolghatty and Vallarpadom. The final cross over from Vallarpadom to Vypeen will be 435 metre long. The first and third bridges will be crossing National Waterway No.III. The second bridge crosses Port’s waterway. All these bridges are profiled to be high-level bridges catering to a vertical navigational clearance of 7 metre. The bridges will carry a motor carriageway, 7.5 metre wide for two-lane traffic and a cycle track cum footpath, 2 metre wide on either side. The roadway will climb at an easy 3% gradient connected by vertical curves for a design speed of 60 kmph. The link from Vypeen to Ernakulam will be in a straight line measuring 3485 metre. The project was estimated to cost Rs68 crores initially but later on updated to 84 crores. Initial finances would be mobilised through loan and be paid back on sale of land. The time frame of construction was four years. In fact, when it was formulated, the alignment was slightly different. Cochin Port Trust always held that they wanted to put up deep draughted berths on the eastern waterfront of Vallarpadom Island. So, they insisted that the waterfront two kilometers from the southern edge of Vallarpadom should be left free and bridges should be constructed only towards the north of this. This had put constraints on the planning of the Vypeen bridges. Any project had to content with the fixed position of the Bolghatty-Vallarpadom bridge. I also had to go by this stipulation. So, though my alignment was crossing from Ernakulam to Bolghatty much towards to the south, I had to align a kilometer long road on Bolghatty towards north to reach the fixed position of the bridge to Vallarpadom. The earlier alignment is given in figure 2. I tried to reason with the Chief Engineer, Cochin Port Trust to relax their stipulation. I put forward two arguments. The channel between Bolghatty and Vallarpadom is very shallow. No deep draughted facility can be sustained there. It would end up creating a virtual silt trap. The dredging liability would be prohibitive. So this water front is not of much use to the Port. Secondly, the proposed Container Transhipment Terminal will be at the southern end. The multi-axle vehicles carrying containers will have to come to the north first and then to the south making a detour affecting the efficiency of the terminal itself. Though initially, there was stubborn resistance from some, finally Chairman, Port Trust gave the green signal. The latest alignment is shown in figure 3. This alteration helped the project in a big way. In the first place, the alignment could be made straight. Secondly, land acquisition in Bolghatty could be drastically reduced. Thirdly, land acquisition in Vallarpadom could be dispensed with. The alignment passed through the reclaimed area of the Port Trust. The land came free for the project. The project could be generally divided into four components. They are: 1) Land reclamation, 2) Bridges 3) connecting roads and 4) Road network on the reclaimed land. As the alignment evolved into the latest one, the third component became insignificant. It could be coupled with the second. This was important for tendering purposes.

Legal battle – 3rd stage

The scene now shifts to the High Court of Kerala for the third stage of the legal battle. The I.A. filed by Maneka Gandhi was taken up for hearing towards the end of January. I was relatively at ease. I did not have to carry the files all the way to Delhi. The High court was near to our office and I was no more alone. Things looked much brighter. But the result of the pre-qualification was weighing me down. On the first day in the court, I realised that I was more familiar with the Supreme Court. Our case was taken up by the Division Bench consisting of Justice Thulasidas and Justice Krishnan Unni in Court No2. Later, a full bench was constituted to hear the Goshree case. Justice C.S. Rajan joined the bench. Goshree case used to receive more than its share of publicity. Reading the headline reports, my colleagues Sathikumari, Town planner and Rema, Finance Officer sometimes used to come to the court to help me. In the court, I used to stand behind either K.K.Venugopal or near the Government Pleader and help them with certain papers and provisions of the CRZ Notification. Advocate M.C. Metha used to come down from Delhi to appear against us. We also decided to bring in expert help. Even though Advocate K.K.Venugopal had expressed his inability to come and appear in Kochi, we decided to try. One night, myself, the G.P. and the standing council went to Delhi and met him. The G.P. had brought a lot of papers along. In fact, I had reached his office earlier than the others and started explaining whatever transpired in the court till then. When the others arrived, Venugopal said “I don’t argue part-heard cases. But luckily Dr Chandramohan gave an accurate account of what transpired in the court.” That was an important step in our legal battle. I used to pick up Sri Venugopal from the airport in Willingdon Island and accompany him to Taj Malabar. I used to brief him during the brief journey and in his room. The Advocate General, G.P. and Collector used to visit later on. We used to be so much engrossed in discussions on CRZ Notification. Once, he came by an early morning flight. We decided to have breakfast after the briefing. The breakfast was served on the balcony. I could not help saying “We are having breakfast in the CRZ. Luckily it is not a prohibited activity.”

Once, Secretary, Local Administration Department was called by the Hon Court to appear before it. Sri Vijayanand who was the Secretary then attended. Among other things, the Court observed that the government had not considered alternatives to the present project. Since the evolution of the project took place in Bombay and since the project was not well documented, nothing was known about possible alternatives. Anyway Secretary reported the matter to the Ministry. Immediately we were given a directive from Trivandrum to prepare alternatives. Obviously, the difficulties of and expertise required for such a Herculean time-consuming task were not well understood by those who issued the direction.

But this turned out to be the ‘right time’ Collector had earlier planned. The Collector told me. “This is the right time to take out your project. We will present the project now.” A copy of the document, which was till then kept under lock, was handed over to the Secretariat. The project would have been put to quick, close scrutiny at high levels of the cabinet. I could understand that a responsible State Government could not present to the High Court a project, which appeared from nowhere. This was more so because of the political strategies also. Prompt came a communication asking me to present the salient features of the project in front of the Chief Minister, Mr E.K.Nayanar. The next day myself, District Collector and G.C.D.A. Chairman, all went to Trivandrum with the required material. The presentation was in the Chief Minister’s Conference Hall. There were the Chief Minister and the Minister for Local Administration, Mr Paloli Mohammed Kutty. Chief Secretary, Sri C.P.Nair and four other secretaries in attendance along with some invited technocrats. Pleasantly, Dr K.M.Abraham was present. There were no formalities. The District Collector said curtly. “Dr Chandramohan will present the project.” I might have taken less than half an hour. I explained my motivation and reasoning for framing the project. It was followed by questions and discussions. I did not have to answer all the questions. Many were answered by the Collector, Chief Secretary and G.C.D.A. Chairman. The way the questions were answered, I could realise that the project was well received. I remember what the Chief Minister said, concluding. “A poor person has to go on foot. Poor person should not aspire to catch a flight for his journey.” I realised that this reflected the philosophy with which I formulated the project. It was the highest decision making body. Political decision might have perhaps been taken earlier. I became aware that projecting a project as the official project of the ministry involved forethought and political calculations. They did not have much time to evaluate the project. Worse still, they did not know anything about the person who formulated it. But two decisions were taken on that day. This has been accepted as the government’s official project. It has to be presented in the Court by Advocate K.K.Venugopal. Sri Venugopal was in Paris at that time. From there, he came directly to Cochin via Bombay.

His gown and coat were air-freighted from Delhi to Cochin. The affidavit explaining the project, was already prepared by me. I explained the project to him. The project made a big impression on him. He wanted to make the project more attractive to the court. So he redrafted the affidavit.

Presentation of the Project

On 11th July 1997 in the afternoon, the new project was presented in the full bench. That was the first time, the project was becoming public. The court was packed. I was standing behind Sri Venugopal. I cannot forget the words, which were said. From the atmosphere, it was clear that the project had made an impression. After Sri Venugopal’s presentation, the court turned to the petitioner’s advocates and asked “The state government has come up with a really nice project. What do you say.” They were hesitant. The Court went on “If you do not come forward now, we will be constrained to doubt your motives.” There was jubilation from the islanders and members of the Action council who were present. In the packed court, Sri Venugopal turned to me and handed over those bunch of papers and said “Now, I have finished with Goshree.” All the advocates burst into laughter. I could not understand. I asked “Why? Why? What is the matter?” He replied. “See their bend of mind.” Sri Venugopal never appeared for the case again. The argument on the case continued and finally, the judgement in our favour came only after six months. But it reflected whatever Venugopal said six months earlier.

Complying with Court Orders

The next day, the media was full of detailed accounts of the project. They never said anything about, who formulated it. Before the judgement was pronounced, the Hon court had sent a copy of the project description to the Ministry of Environment for getting their opinion. After examination, the MOEF said that the reclaimed area can be used only for putting up parks, garden etc. No commercial complex should be constructed on this land. On 8th January 1998, the first judgement was pronounced in the Goshree case. The judgement said that the court did not prohibit 25 hectares of reclamation. The court understood the fund constraints of the State Government. The idea of a self-supporting project was accepted. But court was cautious to add that reclamation should be resorted to only as a last measure. The Hon Court mentioned projects proposed by various agencies like ILFS, HUDCO, KITCO, Ajit Associates and by any other agency, have to be examined and only if they are not feasible, reclamation should be taken up. The court recalled the stipulation of the Ministry of Environment regarding restrictions on land use on the reclaimed land and directed the state government to take up the matter again with the MOEF. In fact, ILFS and HUDCO had not proposed any projects. They were basically money-lending organisations. During the argument stage, petitioners’ advocates used to mention about projects at will. Anyway the State Government sprung into action. A meeting of all concerned, was convened. The meeting in the Guest House at Ernakulam was chaired by Sri C.P.Nair, Chief Secretary. ILFS from Bombay did not respond or attend. At the outset HUDCO said that they do not propose projects. They would consider funding a project, if there is one. KITCO proposed collecting a development cess of Rs5000/- cent on land. This could be collected during sale after the bridges are completed. Chief Secretary ruled it out as impractical. In those lines, there will not be a single cent of land in the state free from cess. Only the islanders could not be taxed in the name of development. That left only a project proposed by M/s Ajit Associates, which was an architectural firm. A committee was set up on that day to examine the project. The committee consisted of Sri V.G.Koshy, Chief Engineer of the Port Trust, Sri P.Thomas, Superintending Engineer, PWD and myself.

The proposed project of M/s Ajit Associates envisaged making use of the accreted area at Puthvupeen for development and later sale. Like in the old Goshree project, deluxe facilities will be put up in this land. It was hoped that the plush sea face and the proposed high profile facilities will attract rich entrepreneurs. The land could be sold at high prices to fund the Vypeen bridges. But Cochin Port Trust had future plans for the land at Putuvypeen. Besides, part of this was in CRZ and no construction could be undertaken there. The project was unrealistic. The committee prepared a report after examination of the various factors. It found that the project was not viable.

Legal Battle – 4th Stage

The fourth stage of the legal battle was to start. The committee’s report along with an affidavit of the State Government was filed in the court. M/s Ajit Associates got themselves impleded in the case. They were aggrieved because their proposal was not accepted. There were arguments in the court. In the mean time, two things happened.

1. The first and the third bridges of the project were crossing the national waterway-3. The Inland Waterway Authority of India (IWAI) had a stipulation that any structures crossing the national waterway should provide a vertical clearance of seven metres. They revised this stipulation of 7 metres to 10 metres. Immediately after the first judgement, I received a letter from them asking me to abide by this new stipulation. I could immediately understand the implication of this stipulation. We have a narrow waterway between Ernakulam and Bolghatty. If the bridge were raised to 10 metres height, instead on 7, then it will overpass Bolghatty Island. The cost of the project will shoot up. This situation has come up after the judgement was pronounced. Immediately, I sent a letter to IWAI. I had put forward a number of arguments against this stipulation. The IWAI was not able to refute these arguments. Water transport was my own field. I could fight in my own ground. But they had statutory powers. We were in two minds as to what was to be done further. We decided to wait for the ‘right time.’

2. The MOEF stuck to their stand. It may be remembered here that the MOEF earlier did not permit building construction on the 25 hectares to be reclaimed in old Goshree project. This land was going to be the wealth of GIDA. The project was to be funded from the sale proceeds of this land. If this land is not suitable for building construction, then it will not be marketable. The self-supporting character of the project will vanish. The government would not be able to go ahead with the project.

The fourth and decisive stage in the legal battle was drawing to a close. The court was convinced that this was the only viable project to build the Vypeen bridges. At one stage, we were asked how we would proceed if the go-ahead signal is given. This was the right time we were waiting for. We came out with the stipulations of IWAI and MOEF regarding the 10 metre clearance and prohibition of construction respectively. The court felt that these two were clarifications and directed us to file a clarification petition seeking clarification to these two points. Those in the legal circles must be well aware of the implications of being a respondent and a petitioner. When I approached the Apex Court two years back, we were respondents in all the cases. During the last two years I would have prepared at least ten affidavits as situations warranted. Since my exposure to the court matters was limited to the Goshree case alone, I could not think of any position other than a respondent. To draft a petition, I had to cross over to the other side of the fence. I consulted some of my Advocate friends. All of them encouraged me. I found that all those who were fighting against us were in the role of respondents. In the process, we should not miss out on anybody. For once, we were on the offensive. I was riding a wave. I carefully tried to put in the two points for clarification. The IWAI and MOEF were also respondents. On 5th August 1998, we filed our clarification petition. Justice Thulasidas had retired by then. Justice A.R.Laxmanan was heading the bench. On 9th October, The Hon High Court pronounced its second judgement in the Goshree case. There were even arguements that the court was not empowered to issue clarifications against an earlier judgement. The court held that GIDA were prevented from proceeding with the directive of the court because of these two stipulations and so it is well within powers of the court to issue clarifications. Against the first point of IWAI, the court directed us to construct the bridges with a vertical clearance of only 7 metres. The second point was clarified in an indirect manner. The Hon court said that they had already held that the reclaimed land would not fall under CRZ. It was implied that none of the stipulations of the CRZ would apply there. So all the legal hurdles against the project was removed. SLPs were filed against this decision in the Supreme Court. The Apex Court dismissed all the SLPs on 8th March. We could go ahead with it. From the four walls of the courtroom, we were out in the field.

The Execution Stage

There were changes in the routine GIDA set up. Sri K.R.Viswambharan took charge as District Collector and Secretary of the Authority. Smt M.S.Jaya came in as the Town planner. Sri Simon Mathew, who had retired form regular service by then, was appointed as Engineer Laison Officer. These two turned out to be good partners for me during execution stage of the project.

I was in a hurry. Six days after the pronouncement of the judgement in the High Court, on 15th October, payment for doing the survey, was made to Cochin Port Trust. Survey was inaugurated by Sri Paloly Mohammedkutty Hon Minister for Local Administration on 25th . It was during the course of the survey that the Port Trust made their big decision to allow the alignment to pass through their area in Vallarpadom. So, the survey had to be extended. Once this alignment was made possible, a committee was made to fix the actual alignment. The committee consisted of Sri V.G.Kohsy, Chief Engineer, Cochin Port Trust, Sri Elangovan, Director, NATPAC, Sri Kasturirangan, Chief Town Planner and myself. There were no external pressures on us. I wanted to make a perfect alignment. The alignment had to start from our reclaimed area in Ernakulam. It has to pass through Port’s reclaimed area in Vallarpadom. It also has to touch Bolghatty and Vypeen. There was no land acquisition in either Ernakulam or Vallarpadom. We decided to limit eviction of families to a minimum. We identified the narrowest point of Bolghatty. We also located a sparsely built up point in Vypeen. When we ran the alignment through these points we were able to get a straight line. I was so happy that the entire 3.45 kilometre of Vypeen-Ernakulam road link was without any bends. This may be the only such stretch in Kerala, also in the city!

Land Reclamation

As was mentioned earlier, the project had four components. Except for a small stretch in Bolghatty and Vypeen, most of the project was falling in the Port limits. Major portion was located in the port waters. Some portion was in Port’s land in Vallarpadom. Any kind of construction in this area required involvement of the Port. Statutory clearances also had to come from the Port Trust. Besides, I had better rapport with the Port Trust. So papers were moved to entrust the work of execution of the first component, the land reclamation, with Cochin Port Trust as a deposit work. According to conditions for deposit work, the entire amount of the work was to be deposited with the Port Trust before they take up the work. Since GIDA had not started mobilising initial funds for the project, the Port Trust volunteered to take up this component with their own resources. They also volunteered to do the soil investigation for the bridges on the same terms. The amounts on account of these could be paid later. It was a good gesture from Cochin Port Trust especially from the then Chairman, Sri Babu Rajeev. In the absence of such an initiative the project would have been a non-starter. So, tenders for reclamation were invited on 24th May 1999.

I could notice one peculiarity with various tenders of this project. Response to any tender was overwhelming. The number of participating tenderers was beyond expectations. This was reflected in the tender amount also. All the tenders were highly contested. Works were awarded at unbelievably low prices. This certainly helped economy in execution. This feature, I think was because of the media attention, the project enjoyed. The firms connected with the project would come into the lime light. This was an encouragement. Work on the reclamation enclosure at Ernakulam, was started by sinking the first facine mattress on 16th November 1999. There was also some filling up to be done at Boghatty for putting up the abutment of the second bridge. The reclamation enclosure was completed totally on 31st August. Reclamation on Ernakulam was completed on 6th December 2000. The land, which is to provide funds for the project, was ready. Whenever, I design any structure, I visualise its shape when it is completed. This shape will be in my mind during its execution. Seeing the completed structure is a dream come true for me. When I looked at the reclaimed land, I realised that what we had made was land from the waters. This symbolised what mythological Parasuraman had done, raising Kerala from the sea. Some photographs of the saga taken by me are given below.

Tendering for the Bridges

In the mean time, second and third components – construction of the bridges and the connecting roads was also entrusted with Cochin Port Trust as deposit works. Preliminaries of the pre-qualification and tendering proceeded fast. About 23 firms applied for pre-qualification. Ten of them were pre-qualified. Cochin is not a favoured location by construction companies. Normally, for marine works, only 50% of the pre-qualified firms finally quote for the work. But in this case, we had eight firms quoting for the bridges. This was beyond all predictions and expectations. Everybody was overjoyed. Those who were connected with works knew the implications. This was a design tender. The terderers were to quote for their own design. The eight tenderers had quoted for nine designs. The tender was based on two cover system. Only the first covers containing the technical bids were opened. This contained their method of doing work, technical conditions and preliminary designs. It was important that the contents of the first cover were scrutinised and clarifications obtained so that the second cover containing the prices are opened. The most difficult and time-consuming process was the scrutiny of the preliminary designs. There was no doubt that everybody was happy that there was more than enough competition. But this posed its own problems. There were nine preliminary designs to be scrutinised. Since the work was entrusted with Cochin Port Trust, they were in charge of the whole procedure. They had to deal with the tenders and tenderers. But since I was emotionally so much involved with the project, and since I thought scrutiny of nine designs was too much even for an organisation like Cochin Port Trust, I volunteered to pool in my resources. I collected one of the designs, put in some hard work, completed its scrutiny and gave my comments. After this, I thought I should continue the good work so that things would move quickly. I completed the second and followed it up with the third. After the third, I wanted to know the progress made by Cochin Port Trust. I was shocked to see that not a single design was scrutinised by them. Thus one by one, I had finished all the nine designs. Now, looking back, I could not believe that the Herculean task was done all by myself! This was perhaps the result of the strong motivation within. There was only one goal – to build the Vypeen Bridges.

Commencement of Bridge Work

All those troubles at last, culminated in opening of the financial bids and finalising the tenders. The stiff competition resulted in an unbelievably low tender price of Rs39.37 crores against an estimated cost of about Rs65 crores! But the port was not able to place the work order until the total cost of the work was deposited with them. Proposal for mobilising the initial finances from financing institutions was mooted much before the stalemate. The Port Trust had already spent a little over Rs10 crores for the construction of the reclamation wall and the soil investigation. This also had to be paid back with interest. Total amount required as advance for the project was Rs84 crores. A single financial institution would not lend such a large amount. Banks’ policy was not to put all one’s eggs in one basket. They told me that this was to minimise the risk involved. This led to the inevitable conclusion that financing has to be done by a consortium of banks. The consortium has to be led by a leader. Kerala State Co-operative Bank, Trivandrum took up the responsibility of being the leader. A meeting was organised at their office in Cobank Towers. It was attended by interested banks. We had to do some spade work to make the banks aware about the project. The Managing Director of the lead Bank at that time was Sri Gyaneshkumar who was connected with the old Goshree Project briefly during his tenure as Commissioner of the Corporation of Cochin. I made a detailed presentation about the project in the first meeting. It was well received. There was a general acceptance that this was a bankable project. Banks and the legal circles raised certain issues which had to be complied. According to Major Port Trust Act 1963, any land reclaimed from the port waters become the property of the Central Government and Port Trust would be the custodian of the same. Since in this case, there was an understanding between the parties, things could be sorted out. The Central Government and the Port would transfer the ownership of this land to GIDA, if the amount due to them towards doing the reclamation and soil investigation was paid. But GIDA was yet to raise funds. So a tripartite agreement was executed between Cochin Port Trust, GIDA and Kerala State Government so that this land could be given as security for the loan to be raised. This agreement signed on 26th February 2001, removed hurdles in the path of availing finances. Still, the Consortium did not take shape. At this juncture, a bold and brilliant initiative from Ernakulam District Co-operative Bank saw the ice melting. The District Co-operative Bank came forward and advanced Rs10 crores without much of a formality. This would be counted in the total loan to be advanced by the consortium when it was formed. The then president of the Bank Sri Monayi and Hon Minister for Electricity and Co-operation, Sri Sharma were instrumental in this decision. The results were spectacular. The cheque for the amount was handed over to the Chairman, Cochin Port Trust on 13th March 2001 and the work order on Afcons Infrastructure was placed on the next day. They took over the site and the work was started in right earnest.

In the meanwhile, the official symbolic foundation stone laying for the bridges, was done by Sri E.K.Nayanar, Hon Chief Minister of Kerala.

Work was progressing. Cochin Port was paying the contractors for the work done by them. The amount was depleting fast. Besides, Port Trust had to be paid back the amount they had spent on reclamation and soil investigation. This came to be more than Rs10 crores. The advance of Rs10 crores given by The Ernakulam District Co-operative Bank had to be adjusted in the total loan of the Consortium.

Kerala went to polls as part of the general elections. UDF Government led by the Congress Party came to power. Sri A.K.Antony became the Chief Minister of the state.

Formation of Consortium

There was change in ideology. Sri Gyaneshkumar took charge as District Collector of Ernakulam and Secretary of GIDA. The change in ideology was reflected in the composition of the consortium also. Till then, the consortium was being mooted in the lines of co-operative banks with the State Co-operative bank as the leader. But apart from the Rs10 crores advanced by the Ernakulam District Co-operative Bank, there was no progress made in the formation of the consortium. It was at this time, that Union Bank of India showed interest in the funding of the project. It was Sri Paul Mathew, Head of Cochin Region who took strong initiative to set the ball rolling. He really did some hard work and took up the matter with their headquarters. I had never approached banks except for depositing or withdrawing from my account. So, I did not know much about their whereabouts. In those days, I used to look at the telephone directory to find out branches or regional offices of various banks. I used to call them and go over to present the project to them. There were some who refused to talk to me when I mentioned the subject. The second step was to invite them over to the camp office for discussions with the Collector. Finally, we had a meeting of all those who did not shy away at that stage. (Some of them backed away later.) Things were easier then. Our strong point was that the reclamation of land was complete, thanks to Cochin Port Trust. The land was our wealth and the wealth was there for everybody to see. Sri Paul Mathew could talk to the bankers in their wave length. Soon, a consortium was formed under the leadership of Union Bank of India. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between GIDA and the Consortium of Banks was signed on 21st April 2002. The consortium wanted a Government guarantee on the loan. A guarantee was issued by the Government for Rs29 crores on 22nd June 2002. The Banks released the amount six days later! That was really fast work. The work went on unhindered.

Geometry of the Structure

As mentioned earlier, the bridge was proportioned to carry a two lane motor carriage way 7.5 metre wide. This was flanked by two 2 metre wide cycle track cum footpaths being separated by two ridges of 0.3 metre wide. All the three bridges were high level bridges. To attain the required vertical clearance, smooth gradients of 3% were provided. The vertical curves were designed for a speed of 60 kmph. The bridges were designed for National Highway loading. Besides, the bridges are to carry two pipelines of 750 millimetre diameter carrying drinking water. Provision has also been made to carry telephone and electrical cables. Some changes had been made in the lengths of the bridges by Cochin Port Trust during execution. Some land spans were added to all the bridges. Five land spans of 26 metre were added to Bridge No1 to make it 398 metre long. Four land spans were added to Bridge No2 to arrive at a length of 578 metre. The arrangement was repeated in Bridge No3 and the length became 449 metre. The box girder had a width of 12.7 metre and a span of 38.55 metre. This was made of pre-stressed concrete. Pre-stressing was done with 12 cables each containing 19 strands. Pre-stressing was done in two stages. The girders were supported on Pot-PTFE bearings. The bearings were in turn supported on pedestals and pier caps. There were two circular piers, resting on twin pile caps. The pile caps are supported on four bored cast-in-situ piles of 1 metre diameter. The subsoil was weaker than evaluated in certain places. Some piles had been even founded at –68 metre.

The piles were to be cast-in-situ. Installation of the piles was done from a floating platform. Since three bridges were involved, and the distance from the worksite at Ernakulam was long, a floating batching plant was used. The pile caps, piers, pier caps and pedestals were cast in situ. The box girders were pre-cast over the piled bed specially prepared. They were pre-stressed at 7days and 28 days – in two stages. Two load-in jetties on piles were constructed in water perpendicular to the casting yard. The girders were side transferred by sliding on to these jetties. The girders were then supported at the ends on the jetties. Launching of the girders was done by a novel method called float-launching. A specially designed floating crane would come in between the jetties. The girder was lifted up by the crane and floated on to the required location. The box girder was then lowered on to the bearings on the pedestals. This method was specially suited for this mult-bridge project. In normal launchings, placing of girders has to start from one of the ends and proceed progressively. In this case, it is possible to place a girder wherever desired. This adds flexibility to the entire operation.

The History of Execution

Pitching of the first pile of the first bridge was done on 27th August 2001. This was a celebrated occasion as the Chief Minister Sri A.K.Antony was present. The first pile of bridge No3 was on 31st January 2001. Piling of the second bridge commenced on 3rd April 2002. The first box girder was cast on 2nd August 2002. This girder was launched on P2-P3 position of the Ernakulam-Bolghatty bridge on 26th November 2002. Girder launching of the second bridge commenced on 7th April 2003 and that of the third bridge started on 9th December 2003. When I am writing this memoirs of the Saga of the Vypeen bridges, the last girders are being launched. The road work is progressing. The Vypin-Ernakulam road link is scheduled to be commissioned by the end of March 2004.

The Poem

We were executing a massive bridge project. This was a great engineering feat. The engineering community were professionally interested. Engineering students were more interested. Many chose to do a piece of the Goshree project for their academic project in fulfilment of the requirement. They had motivation for selecting a bridge project. I used to guide them in their academic work. It is a well conceived fact that engineers do not have much liking for literary work. This is more so with poetry. During those days I was so much carried away with the Goshree Project and Vypeen Bridges that I scribbled down a few words, which perhaps became a poem – a poem on Vypeen Bridges!

Goshree Bridges

They cross Kochi waters – bank to bank
One small island to another they stretch
They skim blue waters – disappearing into greenery beyond
Like a ribbon tied to the Arabian Queen
Over the moving water; they stay solid
They are now part of the liquid history beneath
Strong and sturdy they are when wheels roll
Like the arms of Kochi beckoning to all
They are the life line of a million islanders
They are the future of their tiny tots
They carry water to them to quench their thirst
When they are sick, they carry them for cure

I never liked poetry, rather I hated it. I do not like reading them, let alone writing one. I do not think that I wrote this one. It simply came out of my heart, from my obsession. Bridge is certainly not a topic for poets. I do not know whether anybody anywhere had written a poem about bridges. But these bridges were special.

The Experiences

During initial stages, when scaling down the cost of the project was very much in focus, many tried amateurish ideas. Some tried ‘hit and run’ methods. They tried methods like reducing the size of reclamation, changing the position of bridges slightly for a shorter length etc. They included politicians, advocates, engineers and common men. All of them put their mind to it in a casual manner. Nothing drastic came out of these amateur attempts. Looking back at all those deliberations, I could realise one thing. In those days, the old Goshree project was so much imprinted in everybody’s mind that none was able to get out of its frame work to think freely. May be this is true with all projects. For example, the present Goshree project is in the final stages of completion. The old one is totally forgotten. May be this will be the last publication which will carry the lay out of the old project. But when the pre-qualification failed and I started on my endeavour for formulating a viable project, I used to spend long hours gazing at the old lay out. I could somehow get out of the constraints imposed by previous ideas. The important thing, which dawned on me, was that for Vypeen bridges to become a reality, one has to get out of Thanthonni. Now, people may wonder if somebody tells them that there was a project proposal to align Vypeen bridges through Thanthonni!

Even when Goshree project was very much in the infant stage, cases were filed against it. This was perhaps because of the political affiliations of the proponents and opponents. Lot of deliberations were made in the court. So, GIDA had a set up for dealing with court cases. In those days, it was only routine for me to visit the court. Once a government pleader asked me. “Normally, government officers come only up to our office. Nobody ever comes into the bench. Are you enjoying it.” I enjoyed it as long as the project made headway. But my friends from the engineering community were awed by the very prospects of visiting the court. From top to bottom, we were immersed in the court proceedings. Our problems and solutions came from the court. It had its plus points. For example, when the Inland Waterway Authority of India asked us to increase the vertical clearance to 10 metres we filed our objections in the court. When the matter was taken up by the full bench, I could not see any engineers from the IWAI there assisting their advocate. I feel that it certainly makes a difference.

Similarly, administrative sanction for the project was not forthcoming from the government. On one hand, the government was arguing for the clearance of the project but on the other hand they were not issuing administrative sanction so that steps could be taken for its implementation. True to traditions of Goshree project, Action Council for the bridges filed an OP in the Hon. Court seeking directions to the government to issue administrative sanction. The Hon. Court directed the government to do it within a week. So the administrative sanction also had to come as per directions of the Hon. Court!

There were teething problems during execution. But the project went on. The soil in the area consisted of fine clayey material. It was also black in colour. This was not a good material for reclamation. But we were blessed only with this. I knew that reclamation was going to be a dirty job, dirty for those who are put up adjacent to the site. At some stage in the reclamation process the pumped material will enter their premises. It would even choke their drains. Fortunately we did not have any residences there. There were three factories – Bharat Petroleum, Hindustan Lever, Hindustan Petroleum and Tata Housing. So even before the pumping started, Myself, along with Sri Koshy, Chief Engineer of the Port Trust held meetings with them. I explained the difficulties that would be faced by them in the coming months and requested them to brace themselves to put up with it. But when the level of reclamation started rising, all of them started calling me. I immediately used to go across to their premises to assess the situation. There were serious problems like choking of the cooling water intake, fire-fighting intake etc. At certain stages we even had to resort to desilting the channel leading to these installations.

There was another interesting situation. The dredging and reclamation was being done by a company namely, A.B.C.&Sons. They had purchased a brand new cutter suction dredger from The Netherlands. The dredger was assembled at Cochin. Goshree reclamation was its maiden project. The dredger with its pipelines started pumping round the clock. But the output did not come up to expectations. Dutch experts were called in. As per their advice, the discharge point was given an upward inclination of about 45o. The result was spectacular, for the spectators. The dredge mix emanated from the pipe as a jet, pointed into the sky, making a parabola in the air before hitting the ground. The output increased. But the wind carried fine particles of clay far into the mainland. Hindustan Lever and Bharat Petroleum had their newly painted buildings tarnished by black ugly clay. I had a hard time pacifying them.

The superstructure of the bridge consisted of box girders each weighing about 500 tons. This has to be first cast on land. GCDA’s land on the Marine Drive adjacent to our reclamation was allotted to us on a temporary basis for our casting yard. For supporting the box girder during casting, some piles had to be installed. In the beginning, they were sceptical about whether this would hamper their future constructions there. They made a study and found that these piles would not interfere with any construction. These piles were permanent ones for a temporary structure. They could have been usefully utilised rather than looking at them as hindrance.

Land acquisition was another heart burn. GIDA requested the District Collector to acquire the required land and hand over for project purpose. The alignment had taken care to minimise the acquisition. About two acres of land at Vypeen and one acre of land at Boghatty was all that was required to be acquired. Nothing happened for a very long time. It was after Sri Gyaneshkumar had taken charge that, things on that front started moving. Apart from the official formalities, we had to content with the human side of the problem. Every single soul in Vypeen cherished the dream of the bridges to the mainland. They aspired that when the bridges become a reality, their lives would be much easier. Their land would fetch higher prices. It was only incidental that the alignment passed through their land. So when everybody is enjoying the fruits of the bridges, they are asked to vacate their dear land, which they thought would fetch high prices. All of them knew me through the media. They used to come to our office to enquire about their fate. One of them once said. “We know that you had worked hard for making the bridges, a reality. Because of that we are now losing our habitat.” I knew that at that very moment, they were cursing the bridges and probably me. 31 families in Bolghatty and 19 in Vypeen had to be evicted. I do not know where they are now. I do not think either the bureaucracy or the public who are benefited from the bridges will ever think about them. Theirs was an extreme sacrifice. In my goal to push forward with the bridges I might have been officially immune to the sacrifice they made. But I, may be I alone as a person, carry their feelings with a heavy heart.

We also saw days when GIDA office turned into an employment exchange. Initially there were signs of labour problems. Since in our state, projects are rare, everybody wants to capitalise on the odd project that comes on. Each has his own interest in the project. The labour unions were one among them. Major portion of the employment went to two unions according to some arrangement. But other unions also wanted a chunk. There were times when there was danger of obstruction. But no union wanted to go on record that they obstructed the Goshree project. So a meeting of all concerned unions was convened. For equal opportunities to all, general unskilled workers were asked to register their names. They would be given photo passes and registration numbers. We had registered more than 2000 workers. People from far away places also came to Kochi for registration. We came face to face with the stark unemployment situation of the state.

I came to GIDA on deputation from Cochin Port Trust on 1st August 1996. The deputation was only for one year. After the period was over, I wrote saying that I would like to come back. Without my consent, deputation could not be extended. But in this case, both state government and Cochin Port Trust did not heed. The deputation was promptly extended. This went on for more than five and half years. In January 2002, communication was received from the Ministry of Shipping that I was selected for the post of Chief Engineer at Kandla Port Trust. Kandla was far away in Gujarat. It was a difficult decision. On the spur of the moment, I decided to take the opportunity. So I left GIDA on the 16th of January 2002. Even sitting in this far away land I keep in touch with the project. It is now more than two years since I left GIDA. Perhaps I may not be in Kochi when the bridges are opened to traffic and the long cherished dream comes true. But my heart is there, visualising how they look like, how the waters flow quietly under them, how the boats and canoes pass under them, how cars and buses carry the islanders above them and how people standing on the footpath, gazing at the water below slowly flowing past. May be in the coming years, I can also visualise how the islands are a totally changed land.