Kerala - Kochi   

Smart City: landowners take out rally

KOCHI: A section of the landowners protesting against land acquisition for the proposed Smart City project took out a march to the collectorate on Friday, with their mouths gagged.

The group comprising women and children staged a sit-in in front of the collectorate holding placards announcing their demands. Their main demand is exemption of their six acres at Edachira near Infopark from acquisition.

However, the Collector made it clear that there was no question of any such exemption.

“The IT secretary held a hearing during which he agreed to consider our demand. But nothing came out of it,” E.K. Jamaal, convener of the landowners’ protest committee said.

Besides, the District Collector had unilaterally declared as cancelled a resolution passed by the Thrikkakkara panchayat calling for exemption of the land from acquisition, Merly Abraham, chairperson of the protest committee and member representing the 7th ward of the Thrikkakkara panchayat within the limits of which the land in question falls, said.

“The panchayat committee passed a resolution and forwarded it to the State government. The resolution still stands. We are not aware of its cancellation,” Abdul Kareem, chairman, Development Standing Committee, Thrikkakkara panchayat, said.

He said if the resolution passed by the panchayat committee were to be cancelled, the committee should be reconvened with cancellation as the sole agenda.

He said that the panchayat passed the resolution, as it was fully convinced that the apprehensions of the landowners were genuine.

“The value fixed for our land ranges from Rs.2,800 to Rs. 28,000, while the present market value will fetch anything between Rs.6 lakh to Rs.13 lakh per cent,” Mr. Jamaal said. He said that with the acquisition of 116 acres in the first phase, three km of the Kadamprayar had become part of the area earmarked for Smart City.

“We will lose at least 1.5 km of Edachira Canal and areas south of the Edachira bridge if the six acres included in the 20 acres are to be acquired,” he said.

The main concern is that it would deny local population access to the traditional sources of water.

The protesters said that the acquisition of Masjid-Bund Road would deprive them of a shortcut to the Edachira junction and demanded to make the road the natural boundary.

“We are planning to meet Chief Minister in Thiruvananthapuram before the stone laying function for the project in November 16 to press the memorandum we had given to him on the issue,” Mr. Jamaal said.

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