“Kerala’s Silverline semi-high-speed rail project will cause more damage to the environment than the declared benefits to the state,” KT Raveendran, urban designer and former chair of the Delhi Urban Art Commission, said in an email interview.
Hindu Amid growing row over decision to go ahead with Left Front government
multi crore project ,
Does Kerala, with its high density of population and limited availability of land, need a multi-crore project like the Silverline semi-high-speed rail corridor?
I know that political swords have already crossed on this issue. As a fan of the Pinarayi Vijayan-led government, I do not want to get into that debate. Yet in my view the Silverline project will do more harm to the environment than the declared benefits to the state. Higher speed equals higher cost. The faster the pace, the more capital intensive the project, the less accessible the project is to the common people of Kerala. The problem is do we need more speed or do we need better job opportunities and facilities for the people? Definitely not over speeding!
It is the prerogative of the elected government to decide what is the priority of development. But at what social, environmental and monetary cost? From my perspective, the environmental cost of the project is prohibitively high. In these days of climate crisis when Kerala is far more vulnerable than other states, building climate resilience should be our primary goal. The Silverline project is facing the climate crisis. A cursory glance at the project projected in the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) report reveals how catastrophic the project would be for Kerala’s vulnerability. Any linear system of movement, especially land-based, that is the least flexible to accommodate variations in land profile or even curves and deviations on land is the most intrusive. We already have a rail and road-based movement system that runs north-south against surface water flow in Kerala, another rail line would spell disaster.
What will be the environmental impact of a project that cuts through paddy land and runs over embankments and erosion?
The topography of Kerala has two lateral slopes. From east to west the land slopes from the Western Ghats to the Arabian Sea, from north to south from the laterite lands of Malabar to Thiruvananthapuram. During the last few floods, we have seen the worst flood water where the water scenario of the backwaters is the lowest. In addition, the threat of sea level rise and storm surge from the Arabian Sea are now even more serious threats. In other words, Kerala is under attack from both sides, by aggressive water currents from the sea and the mountains. The project shuns the entire flood plains of South Kerala and moves north towards Malabar to run parallel to the existing railway line.
While the Silverline avoids floodplains in its north-south journey, the EIA is silent on the new floodplains that will result from the 292km of embankments needed to shield the rail. These embankments will have a transformative effect on land and water flow and can completely change the land to its west as well as the land to its east. The EIA report, to its credit, made detailed recommendations for mitigating the problems that would occur on existing floodable land west of the line, while remaining completely silent on the impact of the inevitable embankment. Line!
Consider the fact that the embankment will run through paddy fields, bird sanctuaries, innumerable wetlands and forested areas, rivers and river valleys, all together cutting about 101 km of land and 11 km of underground tunneling and so on. We should not forget that most of the new alignment will separate the Midlands from the coastal areas of Kerala. The rich biological resources of our Ayurveda tradition are present in these Madhya Pradesh only. Numerous streams run through valleys of undulating land in the region to create a unique biodiversity of medicinal plants, which eventually contribute to the river network that crosses the state.
Also consider unexpected changes in local conditions. Add to this the serious mud and debris flows down from east to west. How will these deposits of mud and debris affect the land adjacent to the embankments to the east? What impact will this have on Kerala’s fragile food security and shrinking paddy fields? How many people’s livelihood, home and daily movement will be affected? What happens to the nest and breeding sites of animals, birds and insects? Very important question which cannot be ignored. Rehabilitation of thousands of families is part of the plan. Where is the land for that resettlement? How much new roads, bridges and other infrastructure are needed to meet these needs? Station locations also raise a number of issues. In most cases, they do not match the existing railway stations. As with Malabar they run parallel to the existing line despite being separate, close to the current stations, but requiring some commuting by passengers.
Last mile connectivity from new stations to townships, highways, bus terminals, airports, etc. will also create the need for many new roads, flyovers, parking lots, etc., which will become a burden on local municipalities, besides causing additional pollution to local people. and social cost. The opportunity cost resulting from the cost recovery plan as well as the new station locations will generate new real estate demand. How will these new areas be served by physical and social infrastructure? How does one ensure that opportunities are open for the local people? At this stage the public knows very little about all this. If they are embodied in a ‘copyright-protected’ detailed project report, will the benefits be open only to the privileged few who have access to that information?
Lots of public consequence issues, lots of environmental costs, lots of social costs while the financial pathways are on the way off.
The people of Kerala are attached to their ‘locality’. On an average, traffic is happening only around 200 km daily. Thousands of people travel for more than two hours for livelihood and other needs. Kerala’s tourism is largely dependent on the micro-history and deep connection of the people with their environment. What would be the effect of compressing time and space on the terrain, culture of Kerala? Does size matter?
How should Kerala address the growing need for improved transport efficiency while focusing on environmental protection?
Overall, the environmental cost, the social cost and the monetary cost need to be reconsidered. Decentralised, regionally balanced planning for Kerala may have an effective approach that relies on new technologies, which reduce environmental costs. This can be a planned, slow and sustainable model that gradually grows qualitatively, more equitably and with minimal disruption to the increasingly vulnerable habitations of Kerala. Such a plan would gradually address the issues of the climate crisis at the local level.
Kerala is one of the best states to implement such scheme socially and politically. With mass support on the side of a progressive elected government and an army of loyal volunteers, effective localization is easily possible. Slow-moving, inward-growing, autonomous and locally controlled circular economies would not require any projects of the Silverline scale. On the contrary, it requires the modernization of state-level assets such as railways, roads and water networks for them to rise commensurately in quality. Future technology in transport will revolutionize automobile-based movement, making much of our road expansion redundant, while improved railway networks with local connectivity may also evolve into progressive technology upgrades.
In any case, the challenges arising from the climate crisis will demand a complete review of our housing and transport methods. Silverline for which citizens will pay for next 35 years or so (until Silverline is handed over to Railways) will only add to the burden of the state. Obviously, the best option for the state is to modernize the existing railway network and stations. Anyway, Indian Railways is planning to increase the speed of some trains to 160 kmph. If this is possible with the existing railway line in Kerala, we will have a transport system whose environmental cost has already been paid.
As the lifeline of the state, an upgraded railway will surely see us through the looming uncertainties of the climate crisis. Burdening people with additional indebtedness will adversely affect the entire development process of rebuilding our flood-ravaged state. Growth patterns based on fossil fuel-powered transport systems will soon be a thing of the past, which, if carefully planned, will become the impetus for the next economic leap.