Review meeting on Kochi Bypass held

The concerns of all sections of people will be addressed before commencing land acquisition for the 44.70-km Kochi Bypass, Industries Minister P. Rajeeve said on Saturday.

He was speaking at a review meeting of officials of the National Highways Authority of India and people’s representatives here, prior to laying boundary stones along the proposed alignment. Terming any change of alignment as difficult at this stage, he said the concerns and suggestions from people regarding underpasses and entry/exit points of the NH corridor would be taken note of so that they benefited the maximum number of people.

Steps would also be taken to complete the land acquisition process and distribution of compensation amount in a time-bound manner. The construction of the bypass would begin soon after the acquisition of 290 acres, which would be completed in another two-and-a-half years. A total of 15 bridges would be built on the stretch. The project was slated to cost ₹4,650 crore, and it had to be seen whether land acquisition could be done on the basis of the Land Acquisition Act of 2013, he said.

Hibi Eden, MP, said care must be taken to route the alignment through less populated areas, so that the least number of people were affected. Local bodies must be taken into confidence before building underpasses, said Anwar Sadath, MLA, while K. Babu, MLA, demanded compensation akin to that paid to landowners for the NH 66 widening. Eldhose Kunnappillil, MLA, demanded deployment of more officials for land acquisition.