Messed up

First, no contractor wanted the job. It was a logistical nightmare — a central city project, cutting through residential neighbourhoods and main roads. “To a contractor, that paper must have screamed ‘severe headache,’” the official says.

Only in 2022 did K S Bijli, who had led canal work in Paravoor, take up the challenge. “But nothing,” the contractor says, “has been as complex as the Mullasserry work.”

Protests erupted from Fashion Street vendors. Relocating them to Ambedkar Stadium dragged on for months. Then, just days into the work, the crew struck an underground snarl of utilities that had not been mapped accurately.

Ageing drinking-water lines and a ribbon of sewer pipes traversed the canal, and relocating them required the cooperation (and often, cash) of the Kerala Water Authority (KWA) and other agencies. “Now, this was not taken into account when the contract was drawn up,” Bijli says.

Though KWA was roped in, by the time their work was complete, it was March 2024, and three more deadlines had passed. Even then, KWA’s efforts were deemed inadequate as more pipes kept turning up.

The KWA blames the terrain. “There is no space. Both sides of the road are packed. Options for rerouting are few,” says a KWA official. Though a tender was floated to take care of the pipes, there were, unsurprisingly, no takers.

Each time a new pipe surfaced, Bijli’s crew leapfrogged to another stretch, bleeding time and money. “We have halted work at least six times because another agency hadn’t finished its bit,” he says.

Attempting workarounds led to pipe damage, raising fears of water contamination, which was something officials couldn’t risk.

Each delay pushed work into the monsoon window, which further stalled work. “We can only work during the dry spell, i.e. from November to April. Otherwise, the retaining walls we build risk even greater flooding,” explains an irrigation official.

But where work ends is not necessarily where work resumes, the local residents complain.