Land acquisition for road works to begin soon.

The Revenue Department will begin the process of land acquisition for widening of the Mananchira-Vellimadukunnu road following the transfer of Rs. 25 crore for the project by the State government.

Talking to The Hindu here on Thursday, District Collector N. Prasanth said the first tranche of the funds would be utilised to acquire land at some of the narrowest stretches along the 8.4-km Mananchira-Vellimadukunnu stretch of National Highway 212.

The stretch from Malaparamba Junction to the Civil Station has been identified as a bottleneck even during non-peak hours. 'Our priority is to develop Malaparamba Junction to ease the traffic congestion,' he said. Malaparamba Junction is an intersection of Highways No 17 and 212.

The Revenue Department would also make improvements on government land on the stretch from Civil Station to Eranhipalam Junction and from Malaparamba Junction to ADM Bungalow at a later stage.

There is apprehension among the public, especially the Mananchira-Vellimadukunnu Road Action Committee-led by historian M.G.S. Narayanan, that the project would be shelved if the land required for the road-widening project was not acquired before April 24 when the notification under Section 4(1) of the Land Acquisition Act would expire.

'This is totally false as the notification would end only on June 4. Moreover, even after this date, it can be easily notified within a month. Further, the project for widening the road is under annuity-based scheme,' Mr. Prasanth said.

An amount of Rs. 341 crore is required to acquire land for widening the road. The amount has been worked out by the District-Level Purchase Committee and the State-level empowered committee has endorsed these recommendations.

Nearly 7.36 hectares of land was required for widening the road into a four-lane highway. As of now, the State budget has not allocated any specific funds for the project. However, the road project could be brought under the District Flagship Infrastructure Project announced in the budget. The proposal is to provide each district Rs. 100 crore exclusively for starting a new project, a senior government functionary said.


THE HINDU