A meeting chaired by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy here on Wednesday decided to acquire the remaining land for the Kochi Metro on a war footing and set up a sub-committee to oversee the land acquisition process.
The committee will comprise Minister for Power, who also holds the charge of Railways, Aryadan Mohammed, Revenue Minister Adoor Prakash, the GCDA Chairman, and the Kochi Mayor.
Briefing the media after the meeting, Mr. Mohammed said the panel would negotiate with authorities of St. Albert’s College for acquiring 98 cents of the college ground for a proposed station of the metro.
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Steps would be taken to mitigate the problems faced by road users in Kochi on account of the metro works within 15 days. As many as 150 Home Guards would be posted soon to help ease traffic congestion in the city.
A committee comprising legislators and people’s representatives would be set up in four days to solve the problems at the Aluva- Kalamassery- Churnikara area. It would take appropriate decisions in consultation with the District Collector in 15 days.
The remaining 50 per cent of the white-topping work on HMT Road would be completed in 10 days.
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It was decided to hand over the development of the Vytilla- Petta road to the PWD and acquire land soon.
Similarly, the PWD would take over the development of the Vytilla-Tammanam- Pulepally road.
The meeting decided to commence land acquisition on the stretch. The Kochi Corporation would acquire the land and hand it over to the PWD.
The issues being faced in the construction of Road Over Bridges (ROBs) at Edapally, Pachalam, and South came up for discussion. The Minister said funds would not be a problem for the construction of these ROBs. Already, Rs.9 crore had been sanctioned for the Pachalam and Edapally ROBs.
A meeting would be convened on Thursday to sort out issues regarding the development of the Kaloor- Deshabhimani road.
It was decided to commence land acquisition on the stretch soon, he added.
The culvert work near PVS Hospital at Kaloor would be taken up on completing the metro work. Replying to queries, Mr. Mohammed said global tenders for the rolling stock of the Kochi Metro would be floated on June 4, as decided earlier.
Besides Mr. Prakash, Ports Minister K. Babu, Minister for Public Works V.K. Ebrahim Kunju, P. Rajeev, MP, legislators Hibi Eden, Benny Behanan, Ludy Luiz, Kochi Mayor Tony Chammany, GCDA Chairman N. Venugopal, State Planning Board member and DMRC’s Principal adviser E. Sreedharan, Kochi Metro Rail Ltd. managing director Elias George, and officials of the KMRL and the PWD attended the meeting.