The residents of Ayyampuzha, where the proposed Global Industrial Finance and Trade (GIFT) City is slated to come up on around 500 acres, have appealed to the government not to hold a public hearing on various issues on April 30, as proposed earlier, in the backdrop of the rising COVID-19 cases.
A public hearing has been convened at the Ayyampuzha panchayat hall, said a spokesman for Janakiya Munneta Samiti, which is opposing the project for various reasons.
According to the Samiti, the public hearing is being opposed because hundreds of people from the panchayat will have to congregate in a small space.
The Samiti said while the government was calling for physical distancing and crowding in public places, the public hearing was a violation of its own prescriptions against COVID-19 spread.
The Samiti held that while land was available under the Plantation Corporation for a project like GIFT City, it was not proper on the part of the State to take over the land and evict people from their homes.
The proposed GIFT City is part of the Kochi-Bengaluru Industrial Corridor project. The meeting is scheduled to be held at 11 a.m. on April 30 in accordance with the COVID-19 protocol, and only 50 people will be allowed into the hall at a time.
The hearing is being held to evaluate the impact of the project on people living in the project area. A Samiti spokesman said an official appeal had been made to the authorities to postpone the hearing.
