Prime land, sprawling over an area of 42.36 acres, donated to the Nair Service Society (NSS) by two families at Parakkulam near Kudaloor in 1965 for constructing buildings for a college lies unutilised even after about five decades.
NSS leader Mannath Padmanabhan had laid the foundation stone for the college which was to be constructed on a 20,000 square feet area, said Krishnanunni master who participated in the function.
The public, irrespective of caste and religion, wants either the college to come up or the government to set up a university there, said C P Mohanan, joint secretary, the Parakkulam college committee. He produced a letter written and signed by Mannath Padmanabhan to Dewan Bahadur A V Govinda Menon in 1965 which states that the NSS council will approve a request to set up the college if 50 acres of land and ` 1 lakh were provided.
The letter adds that the council has decided to send Kalathil Velayudhan Nair, a former president of the NSS, to assess the infrastructure at the site.
“Of the 42.36 acres, 18.86 acres were donated by Nambath Manakkal Narayanan Namboodiri in 1964 and 23.50 acres by Padinjareepattu Gangadharan Nambiar, Ullalathodi Ammukutty Appissi and Vishalakshi Kettilamma to the Parakulam college committee.
The land was then transferred by the college committee to the then NSS president Damodaran Asan on January 7, 1965. A sum of `89,000, collected from the public, was handed over for the purpose”, said Gangadharan Vaidyar of Mezhathur who is the president of the college committee.
Some dependants of the land owners had tried selling 14 acres of land to individuals by obtaining a favourable order from the sub-court in Ottappalam in 2008.
However, the district court, Palakkad, on March 31, 2009, cancelled the sale, after the office bearers of the college committee impleaded in the case. The case is now pending before the Kerala HC.