New Delhi, Dec 16 (PTI) Senior Congress leader and former Union environment minister Jairam Ramesh on Thursday flagged concerns about the Kerala government's ambitious K-Rail project, saying it is a "recipe for ecological disaster".

The project, also known as the SilverLine project, is expected to reduce the travel time between Thiruvananthapuram and Kasaragod to around four hours, and is estimated to cost more than Rs 60,000 crore.

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Opposition parties in Kerala, including Congress and BJP, have raised objections to the project.

Against this backdrop, Ramesh said grave and genuine concerns about the projects are being "wilfully ignored".

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"Kerala government is running headlong into another massive infra project, K-Rail, without paying heed to upgrading existing tracks.

"Grave and genuine concerns raised are being wilfully ignored. Frankly, it's a recipe for ecological disaster and it's ridiculous CM is terming it a green project!," he said in a tweet.

On Thursday, E Sreedharan, better known as metroman for successfully implementing the successful Delhi metro project, said the K-Rail project was ill-conceived, lacked technical perfection and was being badly executed.

The ruling CPI(M)'s ambitious project was defectively planned and technically handicapped as to offer any economic or social good for the state, Sreedharan, who had contested as the BJP candidate from Palakkad constituency in the last assembly elections, said.

"The project cannot be completed in five years as claimed. The cost estimated is much less than actual.

"Moreover, the cost of a project should be estimated based upon its completion date. Even if we take 75,000-80,000 crores as an estimate, it would cross a lakh crore at the time of completion in about 10 years," Sreedharan noted.

In October, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan told the state assembly that approval for the SilverLine project was in the final stages.

SilverLine trains, which will start from Thiruvananthapuram, will have stoppages at Kollam, Chengannur, Kottayam, Ernakulam, Thrissur, Tirur, Kozhikode and Kannur before reaching Kasaragod. HRS hrs

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)