THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The land acquisition procedures for the ambitious Outer Ring Road (ORR) project – one of the major upcoming infrastructure projects in the state capital – has been put on hold.
Even after a month of submission of the proposal on the BhoomiRashi web portal by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), the Union government is yet to clear the 3A notification for the project. An official source said it has been one month since the entire documents were uploaded on the portal.
“Normally it takes one or two days for the Centre to issue the 3A notification and even after a month there is no response. We have done everything from our side to proceed with the land acquisition. We have reassessed the properties for a second time as the LA proceedings were done almost two years ago. We can start the disbursal of the compensation and proceed with the land acquisition only after the Centre notifies the project,” said an official of NHAI.
As many as 2,500 families handed over their properties to facilitate the project around 20 months ago. The affected families have been staging protests and giving memorandums seeking the promised compensation which was supposed to be handed over within three months after the submission of the documents.
“It’s been almost two years since we handed over our assets. Why should they collect our documents if they cannot give us compensation? Even now, they are unable to give us a clear reply on the compensation amount or the date we will get it,” said Chandramohanan Nair, chairman, Outer Ring Road Vizhinjam-Navayikulam Janakeeya Samiti.
Recently, the affected families staged a protest in front of the NHAI office at Pettah. The families are planning for another protest in front of the Public Works Minister P A Mohamed Riyas on November 28 demanding speedy disbursal of compensation.
“Both the governments have been fooling us and they shouldn’t have started the land acquisition procedures without being sure about the project. We have decided to intensify protest,” he added.
The state government has announced a special package of `1,629 crore for the construction of the outer ring road from Vizhinjam to Navaikulam. MP Adoor Prakash told TNIE that the matter will be raised in the next Parliament session. The Centre issued in-principle approval for the project in 2018 under Bharatmala Pariyojna.
“The project is on track and the overall delay happened because the state government backed off after initiating the land acquisition. Affected families suffered huge losses and many of them had given advance payment for buying new properties. The dispute over the cost-sharing between the state and the Centre caused the prolonged delay of the project. Now it’s back on track,” said the MP.