State must speak in one voice for metro: Iyer

KOCHI: People of the State must in unison demand the speedy implementation of the Kochi metro-rail project, former Judge of the Supreme Court V. R. Krishna Iyer has said.

This is because the mode of mass-rapid transport is needed to unwind the maddening traffic snarls in Kochi, he said, while inaugurating a Metro-Rail Protection Convention organised by the AITUC on Thursday at the Ernakulam Town Hall. �A section of merchants who are opposing the project must end their misunderstandings about it.

He was critical of the Planning Commission suggesting a public-private partnership, as opposed to the Centre-State joint venture mooted for its execution by the State/Central Governments, the DMRC and the Union Urban Affairs Ministry. �The Planning Commission is making an attempt to test whether the situation is ripe in the State for rampant privatization. We want the project to be executed by the State/Central Governments in a speedy manner. Huge buildings and shopping malls are not the signs of development. On the contrary, development projects must be of help to ordinary people and make their life easier,� said the AITUC State general secretary Kaanam Rajendran. The State secretary of AITUC, P Raju presided.