Mananchira-Vellimadukunnu road widening: nod awaited for Rs. 284 crore.

The State Finance Department's nod for Rs. 284 crore is being awaited to acquire land for widening the Mananchira-Vellimadukunnu Road in the city.

Official sources said the district Revenue department could go ahead with the acquisition process only after securing the amount that had been earlier sanctioned by the State government. Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac had promised to implement the project to widen the busy 8.4-km stretch of National Highway 212 (New NH 766) into a four-lane carriageway. Subsequently, the Kozhikode North MLA, A. Pradeepkumar, had also submitted a report with an estimate of Rs. 284 crore for the project.

However, the project was excluded by the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB), a newly created body by the government to raise additional resources for infrastructure development outside the State Plan fund. Already, a sum of Rs.60 crore has been allotted by the government for the multicrore project.

The land at Malaparamba was acquired for junction improvement. Work is also going on the stretch from Mananchira to IQRAA Hospital Junction. The Revenue department had also taken into government possession about 40 shops at the junction.

Besides, the government had also sanctioned Rs. 4 crore to construct a compound wall to prevent encroachments on government land falling in the alignment of the national highway. Now, the whole project would be brought under KIIFB,officials said.

Earlier, several residents' associations and the Mananchira-Vellimadukunnu Action Committee led by historian M.G.S. Narayanan had threatened to go on an agitation over the exclusion of the project under KIIFB. In fact, this was one of the first projects envisaged under Kozhikode City Road Improvement Project (KCRIP), M.P. Vasudevan, general secretary of the committee, said.

The Revenue department had apprehensions over implementing the project based on new rules of the Land Acquisition Act, 2013. The new rules require the government to conduct a social impact study as well as constitution of a committee comprising Revenue officials and elected representatives to look into the utilisation of funds for mega projects. However, such things would not be required for the project since the Supreme Court had given a ruling on this aspect, Mr. Vasudevan said.

THE HINDU