NH-47 action council to go ahead with agitation

The Hindu ePaper  Staff Reporter

KOCHI: The collective forum of activists protesting against the move to widen national highway-47 and to develop it on BOT basis decided to launch the second phase of the agitation.

The second phase agitation is organised be to pressurise the government to stick to the all-party decision to have four-lane highways built on 30 metre stretch.

Though former Supreme Court judge and eminent jurist V.R. Krishna Iyer was to inaugurate the public convention held at Town Hall here on Friday, he could not turn up due to ill-health. Instead, his message was read out at the convention.

Freedom of movement

In his message, Mr. Krishna Iyer urged not to create a situation where the freedom of movement of common man is obstructed and common man is made to pay toll to the road mafia.

Inaugurating the convention, Kutty Ahmed Kutty, MLA, said that the all-party meeting held in the State had unanimously decided to develop 30-metre highways in four-lanes without BOT. The present attempt to scuttle that decision by some vested interests, both from the ruling and opposition fronts, was not acceptable, he said.

The move to develop highways on BOT-basis should be seen as an attempt to privatise the national highways and this should be resisted by mass protests, said senior media person B.R.P. Bhaskar in his address.

S. Prakash Menon, chairman of NH-47 Action Forum, presided over the function.

M.K. Premnath, MLA, former MLA Rajan Babu, Hashim Chennampilly, K. Aravindakshan, Mujeeb Rahman, K.P. Raviprakash, V. Venugopal, D. Surendranath, G.S. Padmakumar, E.V. Mohammedali, C.G. Varghese, A. Nazar, T.K. Sudhir Kumar, Geo Jose, Philip M. Thomas, Usman Haji, Shaila K. John, K. Rajikumar, Kuruvila Mathews, Khalid Mundappally, and K.V. Satyan, spoke.

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Saturday, Jun 12, 2010