Residents of Palloor in Mahe whose land is notified for acquisition for the Mahe stretch of the proposed Thalassery-Mahe bypass project are in the doldrums as the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has moved the court to challenge the compensation awarded by the arbitrator appointed by the Puducherry government.
The arbitrator had announced the compensation package in its order on January 29 to be paid to 196 land owners, doubling the compensation fixed by the district-level purchase committee (DLPC) in 2012. A notice served on behalf of NHAI Project Director in Kozhikode C.T. Abraham on the landowners a few days ago informed that the NHAI intended to file an appeal under Section 34 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act 1996 against the arbitration award before the Principal District Judge in Puducherry.
An NHAI official confirmed that the appeal had been moved.
The appeal is expected to further delay the acquisition of land for the bypass project that had been proposed nearly four decades ago. The total extent of land notified for extension is 10.5 hectares in different categories such as residential and commercial.
The total length of the bypass is 17.8 km, the Mahe stretch being just two km. When contacted, NHAI officials said the arbitrator doubled the compensation amount by treating the DLPC-fixed rate as base rate. For the land for which the DLPC fixed Rs.4.25 lakh a cent as compensation, for example, the compensation to be paid in the wake of the arbitrator’s award is Rs.9.50 lakh a cent, they said adding that it was a package that even the landowners had not sought.
Local action committee of landowners said the NHAI’s appeal against the arbitrator’s award would further delay the acquisition procedure and payment of compensation. Action committee convener Kannipoyil Babu said the NHAI’s appeal against the arbitrator’s compensation award was unprecedented. He said the rate awarded by the arbitrator was reasonable as the existing market rate for land near the notified area was four or five times higher than the land value fixed by the Puducherry government in Mahe.
