The action committee under the aegis of the Mavoor grama panchayat will organise a human chain in Mavoor on Thursday to urge the State government to reacquire the Gwalior Rayons land in Mavoor.
The land where the factory and the quarters stood was abandoned after the company closed down in 2001. The land, 400 acres, was provided by the State government on lease in 1957. Around 80 acres were later purchased by the management.
Space scarcityMavoor faced a severe scarcity of space for development and there was public pressure on the authorities to use the land productively. The land could either be used for the proposed All India Institute of Medical Sciences or to set up some other industry that would provide employment to the local people, committee officer-bearers said.
There had been many talks between the Birla management and State government over the past 13 years on putting the land to good use. Though the management claimed that it had plans for the land, nothing materialised.
The committee said the management was playing a game to keep the land with it as the government had aborted its plans to sell the land to private parties. In fact, the management had sold many of its properties including the company’s liaison office in Thiruvananthapuram, an airstrip in Chelari, and wood depots before the government interfered.
As per the Kerala Land Reforms Act, an individual cannot own more than 15 acres of land if it was not being used for an industry or plantation. Since the land was neither, the management should keep just 15 acres and hand over the remaining land to the government, the committee said.
The committee had organised a youth convention and journalists’ meet to press the demand. It had also sent a letter to Chief Minister Oommen Chandy. Committee office-bearers said MPs, MLAs, other people’s representatives, and cultural and political leaders of Kozhikode would take part in the human chain.
