THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A high-level meeting convened by the principal secretary to the chief minister with officials from the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), district administration, and revenue department ended without a clear decision on the timeline for disbursing compensation to landowners who gave up their land for the Outer Ring Road (ORR) project.
Official sources told TNIE that the state government will submit the project for environmental clearance from the Union government this week. “Compensation can only be released once the Centre approves the project. The state will be submitting the proposal for environmental clearance by tomorrow. We hope there will not be any further delay in getting the approval from the project. But we don’t know when this will happen,” said an official source.
With no decision or clarity on the disbursal of compensation, the land owners are on a warpath. The representatives of the action council are planning to meet the district collector on Friday.
“Why did they acquire our land for a project that was not approved by the Centre? Thousands of landowners surrendered their land without any protest three years back and we have been struggling and running from pillar to post for compensation.
They cannot compensate for the losses we faced in the past three years and we don’t trust the government anymore,” said Chandramohan Nair, convenor of the action council representing the landowners. He said that an indefinite hunger strike will be launched from August 1 in front of the NHAI.