Land acquisition to be speeded up for NH 66

Kerala: Land acquisition to be speeded up for NH 66
June 6, 2012 By Cynthia Chandran DC Thiruvananthapuram
Land acquisition on the national highway 66 is going to be a headache for the state government and the National Highway Authority of India.

While public works minister V.K. Ebrahim Kunju has said the acquisitions will be hastened, the Highway Action Forum says it would step up the agitation.

The forum alleged the recent notification on land acquisition was complicated, and about 6,000 families were affected by the land acquisition on the Attingal road alone.

Initially, the government had wanted to acquire 60 metres on the NH which invited opposition from several quarters.

According to the NHAI Act, Kerala got a reprieve in the form of acquiring land of a width of only 45 metres.

Due to the opposition, land acquisition was not taking place for the last several years.

“The road in front of my home is yet to be developed though a stretch of 30.5 metres was acquired some 38 years back. So what is the point in acquiring a total of 45 metres as part of road widening?” asked. G. Mukundarajan, a resident of Korani in Attingal.
However, Ebrahim Kunju said his department would go ahead with the road-widening, as currently three times more than the normal traffic density was experienced on NH 66.

“The priority is to speed up the land acquisition. We are aware of the opposition, but with the Rehabilitation and Resettlement (RR) package, complainants’ woes will be addressed,” he told Deccan Chronicle.

“Since the last four years of the formation of the Hi-way Action Forum, the government had not given a single piece of land to those who lost their homes,” alleged R. Giri Prasad, Kollam district secretary of the Highway Action Forum.