The district administration handed over 80 per cent of the compensation amount to six landowners who surrendered their land on the Town Hall-Madhava Pharmacy Junction stretch on Thursday.
November had been fixed as the deadline for acquiring the land. The landowners are to get a total of Rs.52 lakh per cent.
The land acquired will be used to widen the narrow stretch on Banerjee Road into a 22-m-wide road. Fifty-six cents of land is required for this purpose. The delay in acquiring the land had invited much criticism.
The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, which was entrusted with the task of widening three arterial roads in the city and building two overbridges, had awarded the widening work to a contractor earlier this year, anticipating that the land would have been acquired on time.
The widening of the MG Road (for which nine cents is yet to be acquired) and Jos Junction-Ernakulam Junction railway station road (37.50 cents yet to be acquired) is expected to be taken up alongside the work on the Kochi metro.
Officials entrusted with the land acquisition said most of the landowners on the three roads had handed over their letters of consent. Eighty per cent of the compensation amount will be paid to all of them in the coming days. A few are yet to give the letter, reportedly because of differences of opinion among co-owners. A few landowners have formed a forum demanding quick payment of the compensation.
