The compensation amount for the parties who have surrendered their
land for the preparatory works of Kochi Metro Rail will be given at the
earliest, district administration officials have said. A sum of Rs 48.88
crore has been earmarked for the land acquisition. The district
administration has already paid Rs 21.59 crore as compensation for the
land acquired, taking the total fund allocation for the purpose to Rs
70.47 crore. The preparatory works include the widening of Banerjee
Road, M G Road, South Railway Station Road and for the construction of
new Rail Overbridge near KSRTC station and the foot overbridge.

The
District Collector’s office will start the distribution of compensation
amount as per the completion of the assessment of the documents
submitted by persons those who have surrendered the land. “A consensus
has been reached between the parties concerned and the district-level
purchase Committee on the price of the land acquired. The compensation
package was approved by the State High-level Committee. Once the land
acquisition for the preparatory works is completed, the district
administration will begin the procedures for acquiring land for the
project,” the District Collector said in a statement. As a first step,
the district administration has finalised the price for the land to be
acquired for the Metro yard to come up at Muttam. The cost of one cent
of land at Muttam has been finalised at `1.02 lakh and a total of 41
acres of land will be acquired at the site. The land at the proposed
site belongs to 116 persons, and all the plots will be acquired after
handing over 80 per cent of compensation amount to all the parties. The
remaining 20 per cent compensation amount will be given after receiving
the nod from the High-level Committee.

For the construction of the
Metro stations, Via Ducts and the Muttam Yard, a total of 78.89 acres
need to be acquired. Out of the total land, 20.60 acres belong to the
state government.

The district administration will also take steps
to hand over 17.3 acres of land, identified for Metro Business District
at Kakkanad, to KMRL. A total of 33 acres was identified for the
Business Village while another 2333.57 acres need to be acquired for the
Metro Village to come up at Muttam.