THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The insufficient number of labourers due to the spike in Covid-19 cases has again slowed down the ongoing second phase development of national highway bypass from Mukkola near Kovalam to Karode near Kerala-Tamil Nadu border. This has forced the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to push the completion of deadline of NH66 bypass from October 2020 to January 2021. The deadline was extended from May to October two months ago.
According to the NHAI, the work will not be completed soon as only 150 labourers are in work currently. The minimum requirement of the number of labourers should be 300 and the work could be completed early only if they worked in day and night shifts. “We have an acute shortage of workers. However, we are trying to mobilise them to the work spot after completing their quarantine period. The workers were brought to the state on buses from West Bengal and Orissa only last month. So we cannot complete the work in October which is why we had to push again the deadline to January,” said P Pradeep, project director, NHAI.
