The Public Works Department or Kochi Metro Rail Limited (KMRL) must urgently step in to widen the bottlenecked Vyttila-Kunnara Park stretch, while ongoing land acquisition of the road beyond the park up to Pettah must be sped up, landowners on the corridor demanded.
They were participating in a public hearing arranged on Monday by Rajagiri Outreach, as part of the social impact assessment (SIA) to widen Champakkara-Pettah Road into a four-lane corridor. They expressed deep concern over the delay in constructing a flyover at Vyttila.
“Landowners reiterated their long-pending demand to widen Vyttila-Kunnara Park stretch alongside the rest of the corridor up to Pettah since thousands of motorists have to bear an agonising wait every day to cross the busy Vyttila Junction. They also demanded speeding up of land acquisition up to Pettah since the land and buildings to be surrendered were frozen for many years to pave the way for Kochi Metro to Thripunithura,” said V.P. Chandran, councillor representing Chambakkara division.
Another demand was to ensure that least disturbance was caused to the Champakkara market while rebuilding the bridge adjacent to it. P.T. Thomas, MLA, and Revenue officials participated.
A senior Revenue official said the public hearing was held as per the new Land Acquisition Act prior to issuing a notification under Section 11 (1). A notification under Section 4 (1) was issued earlier following survey of the land required.
Landowners who have to surrender a bulk of their land demanded that KMRL take over small portions left too, since they would be rendered useless in the long run. They suggested that these tiny spaces be used to set up kiosks, transformers which now jut into the road or to park vehicles. It is now up to revenue authorities to suggest which all such tiny land pieces have to be acquired.
A review meeting of Monday’s hearing will be held on Tuesday at the collectorate, prior to submitting a final report to the District Collector.
Land belonging to those who oppose the compensation package would be acquired under the new LA Act, sources said.
