{"id":27131,"date":"2016-10-18T13:27:09","date_gmt":"2016-10-18T07:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/?p=27131"},"modified":"2016-10-18T13:27:09","modified_gmt":"2016-10-18T07:57:09","slug":"historic-ts-canal-revived-connecting-kollam-kovalam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/historic-ts-canal-revived-connecting-kollam-kovalam\/","title":{"rendered":"Historic TS-Canal To Be Revived Connecting Kollam with Kovalam!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The ambitious plan to revive the age-old Varkala TS Canal has gathered momentum again. The state government has roped in E. Sreedharan in to look into the possibility of widening the Sivagiri tunnel and Chilakoor tunnel.<\/p>\n<p>The project is to revive and widen the 722-metre Sivagiri tunnel and the 350-metre Chilakoor tunnel on the 60.5-km Trivandrum-Kollam section of the TS Canal to meet future needs and extend National Waterway III up to Kovalam.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Sivagiri tunnel, completed in 1880, is reported to be the only one of its kind in Asia.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Sreedharan who had expertise in laying of 83 km of tunnels in 92 locations for Konkan Railway, visited the tunnels to look into the feasibility of widening the two tunnels to ensure the hassle-free movement of bigger vessels and barges through the waterway.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-21964 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/files\/2015\/01\/Varkala-Tunnel-2.jpg\" alt=\"Varkala Tunnel 2\" width=\"712\" height=\"572\" srcset=\"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/files\/2015\/01\/Varkala-Tunnel-2.jpg 712w, https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/files\/2015\/01\/Varkala-Tunnel-2-638x513.jpg 638w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 712px) 100vw, 712px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The two tunnels and the 12.7-km waterways are part of the 60.5-km Trivandrum-Kollam section of the TS Canal. The adjacent Kollam-Kottapuram stretch of the West Coast Canal has been declared as National Waterway III and is almost ready for commissioning.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-21963 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/files\/2015\/01\/Varkala-Tunnel-1.jpg\" alt=\"Varkala Tunnel 1\" width=\"712\" height=\"548\" srcset=\"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/files\/2015\/01\/Varkala-Tunnel-1.jpg 712w, https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/files\/2015\/01\/Varkala-Tunnel-1-666x513.jpg 666w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 712px) 100vw, 712px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>In order to revive the canal and to make the stretch navigable and extend the NW III up to Kovalam, dredging, widening, and reinforcement works needs to be done. The proposal is to create a 14-metre wide, two-metre deep waterway on the 12.7-km stretch for the vessels to cruise.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-21962 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/files\/2015\/01\/Varkala-Tunnel.jpg\" alt=\"Varkala Tunnel\" width=\"712\" height=\"554\" srcset=\"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/files\/2015\/01\/Varkala-Tunnel.jpg 712w, https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/files\/2015\/01\/Varkala-Tunnel-659x513.jpg 659w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 712px) 100vw, 712px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Earlier, the government has initiated steps to expedite the development and revival of the waterway from Anchuthengu Kayal to Nadayara Kayal, and the revival of two tunnels at Varkala and Reach II from Thazhevettoor to Ramanthalay at a cost of Rs.19 crore.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The tunnels and the waterway date back to 1880, when it was completed by Diwans T. Madhava Rao and Seshaya Sastri during the reign of Sree Ayilyam Tirunal.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The tunnels and the waterway date back to 1880, when it was completed by Diwan T. Madhava Rao and Seshaya Sastri during the reign of Sree Ayilyam Tirunal.\u00a0 The Sivagiri tunnel, completed in 1880, is reported to be the only one of its kind in Asia.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><em><strong>Photographs:<\/strong> Taken around 1900 by the Government photographer, Zacharias D\u2019Cruz<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The ambitious plan to revive the age-old Varkala TS Canal has gathered momentum again. The state government has roped in E. Sreedharan in to look into the possibility of widening the Sivagiri tunnel and Chilakoor tunnel. The project is to revive and widen the 722-metre Sivagiri tunnel and the 350-metre Chilakoor tunnel on the 60.5-km [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":27133,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,4,1],"tags":[452],"class_list":["post-27131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-city-news","category-general","category-uncategorized","tag-trivandrum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27131"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27131"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27135,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27131\/revisions\/27135"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}