The Ernakulam District Administration must acquire 32 cents of land from Seematti Textiles on an urgent basis since this is the sole obstacle to constructing Kochi Metro pillars in the 18-km-long Aluva-Maharaja’s College stretch, Kochi Metro Rail Limited sources said.
“We sent four letters to the District Administration to acquire the firm’s land on north end of MG Road, since repeated attempts for negotiated purchase and signing of an MOU with the firm failed. The stalemate over land acquisition continued though we were willing to extend a few concessions to the firm till recently. Now, it is up to the District Collector to acquire land forcibly or by providing a 48-hour notice to vacate the premises, as was done in Pachalam recently,” they said.
‘No more MoU’
KMRL’s Managing Director Elias George said the ball was now in the District Collector’s court since there was no more scope for inking an MoU. “We handed over to the District Administration Rs 14.58 crore of the total Rs 16.50 crore compensation that is payable to Seematti, at the rate of Rs. 52 lakh per cent. This works out to 80 per cent of the total compensation payable. All other procedures to take over the land too are over and we cannot wait any longer,” he said, referring to repeated expiry of deadlines to acquire the land.
Collector’s reaction
Reacting to the issue, District Collector M.G. Rajamanickam said that KMRL was keen on negotiated purchase of the land till March 9 and hence the District Administration had no role in it. On March 10, it gave a requisition letter to the District Administration to take over the land at the earliest, following which we fixed March 18 as the deadline. “Now, we are being blamed for delay, though they could not arrive at a negotiated settlement during the past couple of years,” he said and added that efforts were under way to acquire the land at the earliest.
