KOTTAYAM: Government issues order for land acquisition

Kottayam: In a significant step towards realizing the greenfield of Sabarimala International Airport in Erumely, the state government on Wednesday issued an official order to acquire land for the project. The order, issued by Ingressos Principal Secretary Tinku Biswal on the basis of the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act (LARRA) of 2013, serves as the basis for the land acquisition process that will be followed. Later notices. The new order was issued after considering the Social Impact Assessment (SIA) report, recommendations of the committee of experts based on the SIA report and the report of the District Collector. In the report, the District Collector had announced that the land will be acquired as per Section 7(5) of LARR Act. The new order specified that the project would acquire a total of 1,039,876 hectares (2,570 acres) in the villages of Erumeli Sur and Manimala. The keyboard marking process will end at the end of December. It comprises 307 acres of land located outside the Cheruvally estate, which is currently in the possession of the Ayana Charitable Trust affiliated with the Church of the Believers of KP Yohannan. However, upon digital mapping of the land, it was revealed that the project alone required 165 acres of land outside the Cheruvally property. As officials enter the final stages of the digital mapping process, they have started marking the boundaries of the site designated for the project. This implies the installation of yellow colored iron pipes to clearly mark the boundaries of the designated area. It is expected that the process of marking the keys, which started at Charuveli near Mukda, will be completed by the end of December. “The delimitation tubes will be installed at a visible distance to ensure that the project locality can be easily identified. Additionally, officials will evaluate whether adjustments can be made in the final phase to protect existing buildings or houses within the proposed area,” an official said. The digital map is being carried out by Kochi-based Meridian Survey and Mapping under the supervision of American consultant Louis Berger Consulting Pvt Ltd, responsible for studying the techno-economic feasibility and evaluating the environmental impact of the project. In the next step, the government will issue a notification for land acquisition as per Section 11(1) of the LARR Act, which is a preliminary notification for land acquisition. Thereafter, the government will initiate an official study of the land as per Section 12 and prepare a file of the exact extent of land to be acquired along with the number of the study. The details of the Rehabilitation and Resettlement Package (RR) as mentioned in Section 19(1) of the LARR Act will be as follows.