Chinnakada


Chinnakada or Chinnakkada is considered as the heart of the city of Kollam in Kerala, India. Chinnakada is a busy junction where 5 city roads and one National highway interconnect at a traffic roundabout. The city's symbolic clock tower is located in Chinnakada. To reduce the traffic congestion in Chinnakada, Kollam Municipal Corporation constructed an underpass near to clock tower. Marine Products Export Development Authority 's Kollam sub-regional office is situated at Chinnakada.

Toponomy

The name Chinnakada may be derived from China-Kada, which means China bazaar. Another explanation is that due to the presence of a large number of Tamil people in Kollam, they named the area Chinnakada, which means "small market" in the Tamil language. This derivation fits with the toponomy of Valiakada adjacent to Chinnakada, which means "big market" in Malayalam.
;Other areas in Kollam ending with the word kada in the name
The ancient city of Kollam, then known as Quilon, was an important center for trade with the Chinese.

Chinnakada Underpass

The Chinnakada Underpass is a public road infrastructure project for the city of Kollam as part of the Kerala Sustainable Urban Development Project supported by the Asian Development Bank to ease traffic congestion at Chinnakada, the city CBD of Kollam. The presence of an existing Railway over bridge and three close intersections with heavy traffic limits the option for traffic management measures including junction improvement. That caused the authorities to think about this underpass at Chinnakada. Chinnakada is a complex junction where roads from Thiruvananthapuram, Alappuzha, Downtown, Sengottai, Ashramam, Kollam Beach and the City bus stand road meets.
Preliminary design for underpass was prepared by NATPAC involving the acquisition of of government land on a temporary basis. Height of the road passage above the underpass was increased to from to facilitate movement of modern container trucks through the underpass. Underpass has been thrown open to the public by the end of May 2015.

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