Land acquisition for Kannur airport

Kannur: Negotiations by the District Level Purchase Committee (DLPC) with title-holders to fix the value of land to be acquired for the proposed Kannur airport has been under way.

The DLPC has already completed negotiation for total 895 acres of land from 694 titleholders in the two sittings. More negotiations would be completed in the sitting being held at the Collectorate Conference Hall here late Wednesday.

The DLPC chaired by District Collector Ishita Roy has been holding its sitting since November 7.

The value of land ranged from Rs.16,000 a cent to Rs.19,000 and Rs. 22,000. Officials said all the titleholders whose

land value had already been fixed had signed the authorisation letters. Landholders from 1, 2, 3 and 28 blocks attended the negotiations on Wednesday.

As per the schedule, the acquisition of 1,092.88 acres of land would be completed in January and the procedures for taking possession of the land through negotiations would be completed in November.

After completing the negotiations at the DLPC, the State-Level Purchase Committee (SLPC) would meet at the end of this month to finalise the land value fixed by the DLPC. The DLPC should conclude negotiation for 1,092 acres of land to be taken possession from 1,137 titleholders.

The airport project has gathered momentum with the Kerala Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Kinfra), the nodal agency for the State government, inviting expression of interest from consultants for developing the proposed greenfield airport here.

The area where the airport is being developed is located 20 km from here. The airport is proposed to have a main runway and a taxi track and is expected to have an initial annual traffic of more than one crore international passengers and over three lakh domestic passengers. The airport is also projected to handle 16,000 tonne international cargo initially.

As many as 136 families being displaced will be rehabilitated. The rehabilitation package included assignment of 10 cents of land to each family in areas close to the places they are being evicted from.