Thiruvananthapuram: The procedures for acquiring land for
airport development picked up pace, as revenue officials began the land valuation at Vayyamoola here.
The Airport Authority of India (AAI) had demanded 18 acres for the construction of an integrated terminal for both international and domestic operations, additional check-in counters, immigration counters, conveyors etc.
A team from revenue department led by tahsildar completed the survey work for land valuation last week.
The land acquisition will directly affect 105 families. Among them, 73 families will be displaced from homes and 32 will lose their land.
As per revenue records, 33 cents come under open land owned by 13 persons, 9.79 acres come under wetland area owned by 56 persons and two persons live in 8.75 cents of poramboke land. The land documents of the residents and vacant area were verified for preparing the estimate of the compensation.
“The compensation will be decided based on the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act,” said an official from the district administration.
“Earlier, there was opposition from the people due to apprehensions regarding compensation amount. The data for the survey was collected after many visits to the area. The work included site inspection and verification of land documents. We will soon submit the document to the government to proceed with the compensation package for the evictees,” said an official from the district administration.
A social impact assessment study conducted by Loyola College of Social Sciences stated that the method of calculating the land value based on previous land transactions had become unscientific in this case and market value of land must be considered as the criterion.
The last commercial transaction in the affected area happened in 2012.
The SIA report proposed to develop a unique and practical mechanism for assessing the land value in this location.
