KOCHI: The long-awaited development of road infrastructure and the expansion of Seaport-Airport Road has gained momentum with the Supreme Court issuing an order to hand over the land that belongs to HMT to the Roads and Bridges Development Corporation of Kerala (RBDCK) for road construction.
The issue of the acquisition of HMT’s land has been a major obstacle to the development of Seaport-Airport for over 20 years. A total of 1.632 hectares of land belonging to the HMT has to be acquired for road construction. According to a High Court ruling, the land is under state government ownership. The interim order came on an appeal filed by HMT in the Supreme Court against the High Court ruling.
Industries Minister P Rajeeve, Revenue Minister K Rajan, and Works Minister P A Mohamed Riyas had decided to seek the Supreme Court’s permission to acquire the land and secured approval to avail of Rs 16.35 crore from a nationalised bank for the acquisition. The decision was reached at a high-level meeting of the ministers held in Thiruvananthapuram two weeks ago.
The Supreme Court said that the amount to be fixed should be based on a 2014 pricing report, rejecting HMT’s demand to fix it at 2024 prices. Minister Rajeeve said that the Supreme Court has directed that the amount should be deposited in the name of the High Court Registrar.
“Last week, the President issued an order allocating 2.4967 hectares of land from NAD for the development of Seaport-Airport Road for road construction. The process of handing over the proposed land in Thrikakkara North Village to the RBDCK for construction works is in progress. RBDCK will pay Rs 23.06 crore as the land price to the Union Ministry of Defence,” said Rajeeve.
As per the agreement with NAD, the HMT-NAD Rad will be rebuilt with a width of 5.5 m in exchange for providing the land. With a major hurdle cleared, construction work will commence soon, the minister said.
At a recent board meeting of KIIFB , it was decided to allocate an additional Rs 722.04 crore for the development of the NAD-Mahilalayam reach as per the minister’s instructions. The sanctioned amount is based on the revised estimate.
Under the Seaport-Airport Road project, the widening of the Bharata Mata College-Collectorate Road and the Infopark-Irumpanam Road has begun.