Kuthiran is a mountainous terrain in Thrissur district of Kerala state, south India. It is in between Thrissur and Palakkad. There is a famous Ayyappan Temple located here by the side of the highway. It is in the NH544 highway.
Kuthiran Tunnel is an under construction tunnel at Kuthiran. When finished, it will be South India’s first-ever tunnel for road transport.
Kuthiran is infamous for the bad condition of the National Highway. Accidents are very common across this stretch. Recent news clips show that people traveling between Trichur and Palakkad are choosing alternate roads like the Trichur-Shoranur-Ottapalam-Palakkad.
The First Time Entry to Kuthiran Tunnel ATC 95 Velankanni Super Express of KSRTC
Kuthiran Tunnel is an under construction tunnel in Kuthiran in Thrissur District of Kerala state in India. When finished, it will be Kerala’s first-ever tunnel for road transport.
Kuthiran gradient is situated in the Kuthiran Hills, which falls in the notified Wild Life Sanctuary. Presently, Kuthiran gradient is a major traffic bottleneck and accident spot on the crowded Thrissur-Palakkad stretch of the National Highway 544 (India). Once the works are completed, both the tunnels would reduce the distance between Kochi to Coimbatore up to 3 kilometres (1.86 mi). The tunnel through the Kuthiran will also avoid vehicular congestions while traversing the hills.
The twin tube tunnels will have length of almost 1 kilometer (962 m or 3,156 ft), while the width and height would be 14 and 10 metres (46 and 33 ft), respectively. The tunnels would be located in a gap of 20 metres (66 ft). There are two emergency crossovers inside the tunnel.
The tunnel road was opened temporarily to ease traffic jam at Kuthiran on the Thrissur-Palakkad National Highway on 14-06-2019. Traffic was disrupted on Thrissur-Palakkad National Highway early on Friday for hours as two lorries overturned after they collided with each other at Kuthiran.
As the traffic was disrupted for about five hours, the tunnel road was opened temporarily to ease chaos.
A container lorry and a goods lorry rammed each other in the early hours of Friday. The vehicles collided with each other at the Kuthiran bridge and overturned on the road, blocking traffic. Long, serpentine queues resulted on both sides and rain made the situation worse.
As removing the vehicles would have taken considerable time, the top brass of the police conducted discussions with the National Highways Authority of India and decided to temporarily open the tunnel road.
Thus, vehicles coming from Palakkad side were diverted through the tunnel by 4 a.m. The traffic block was eased by 7 a.m. The lorries were removed from the road in the morning.
Though there was demand to open the tunnel road for traffic earlier, no decision was taken on this. Work on the twin tunnels, which is almost completed, has been put on hold for the past 10 months, owing to non-payment of funds to the sub-contractors.
