The Moolampilly Coordination Committee has accused the district administration of misrepresenting facts, an allegation shot down by the administration.
In a release issued here, the coordination committee has accused misrepresentation of facts in response to a letter to Revenue Minister K. Rajan on a representation sent to the Minister by senior Congress leader V. M. Sudheeran demanding implementation of the Moolampilly rehabilitation package in full.
The committee said that the district administration’s claim that the rehabilitation plots in Kakkanad and Vazhakkala villages in Thuthiyoor were ready with basic infrastructure and that the government order for giving job to one person from every affected family could not be implemented by the Cochin Port Trust since the project was on Build Operate and Transfer (BOT) mode were against facts.
“We have been relentlessly demanding for the past 14 years that the twin plots in Thuthiyoor be made inhabitable, the plots of the evictees be demarcated and that the rehabilitation package be implemented. A fact-finding mission comprising environmental activist Medha Patkar, Mr. Sudheeran, former judge K. Sukumaran and late Thrikkakara MLA P.T. Thomas had visited the plots and reported their sorry state,” committee office-bearers Francis Kalathunkal and V.P. Wilson said in the statement.
That the jobs promised to the evictees could not be granted on account of the project being BOT despite a government order and signed by the Governor to that effect amounts to cheating the people who gave up their land for the development project, the committee said.
Officials of the district administration shot down the allegations claiming that both the plots had the basic infrastructure and that they fell into disuse following prolonged neglect by the beneficiaries concerned. As for the plot in Kakkanad, funds have been allocated for resolving the waterlogging issue as per the recommendations of a specially constituted committee.
With regard to the jobs, the Cochin Port Trust had already communicated its inability to honour the promise to the government and the court and about which the committee is also aware, they said.
