Unfazed by the protests demanding higher compensation for land acquisition, the Revenue Department is set to go the whole hog in acquiring land to widen the Vyttila-Pettah stretch in a time-bound manner.
“The acquisition process is on course and we are not ready for negotiations any further. Those who are unwilling to handover the land will be dealt accordingly while strong action including forcible eviction will be initiated against those scuttling it’’, warned District Collector MG Rajamanickam.
According to the collector, the authority has set the maximum price for the land to be acquired by including it in the R&R (rehabilitation and resettlement) package. “Even though the widening forms only a part of preparatory works for the metro rail project, the government has included it under the metro’s R&R package on a special request’’, the collector added.
Under the package, each evictee will be eligible for a compensation of Rs 5 lakh for loss of livelihood and another Rs 1.36 lakh for rehabilitation.
The authority seeks to take over a land of 1.66 hectares in the 3-km stretch between Thykoodam and Pettah and identified about 268 holdings, including 29 houses and 149 shops. Earlier, the District Level Purchasing Committee fixed the price of land in the region at Rs. 21 lakh per cent.
Recently, the district administration received a cheque of Rs.25 crore from the Kochi Metro Rail Limited after which it kicked off the acquisition process . “Last week, we took over about 29 cents of land from 10 land owners and are set to acquire another 10 holdings this week’’, said Sobhana Kumari, Deputy Collector (land Acquisition).
