Fresh hurdle has slowed down the progress of Thammanam-Pullepady Road widening project. Though Kochi corporation had already fixed an alignment, the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB), the funding agency, has demanded changes in the alignment.
It is following technical flaws in the land acquisition process done for the project earlier that the KIIFB has demanded fresh alignment for the project. Though the corporation had taken over some land holdings as free surrender and a few other holdings through land acquisition, there isn’t details of survey numbers of land thus taken over. This has created a confusion regarding handing over the land to Kerala Road Fund Board (KRFB), which is to carry out the road widening.
“I had taken up the issue at assembly. Many of the landowners had surrendered their holdings free of cost several years ago. Then, Kochi corporation had granted them more floor area ratio to construct buildings. If the new alignment is fixed, the buildings thus constructed by the landowners who surrendered their holdings will have to be demolished. So, residents came up with protests when the revenue officials came there to conduct a survey for fresh alignment,” said MLA T J Vinod.
Moreover, the new alignment exempts already acquired land parcels as well. When new holdings are to be acquired, even while already acquired land parcels remain idle, will cause additional burden on the exchequer.
“A meeting has been held to sort out the issue. A decision to handover the land parcels which have already been taken over by the corporation along with their survey numbers has been taken, it is learnt,” Vinod said.
“If so, the change in the alignment can be avoided. For this purpose, a fresh survey will have to be conducted,” he said.
The proposal for widening the 3.46-km road from Padma Junction on MG Road to 22m was started three decades ago.
