People turned up for a demonstration, led by Tiruverumbur MLA Anbil Poyyamozhi , at Ariyamangalam on Friday in response to a call by Federation for Retrieval of Tiruchi Palpannai-Thuvakkudi Service Road, to register their protest against the delay in acquiring the land for laying service roads along the city stretch of Tiruchi-Thanjavur Highway.
Functionaries of the joint action committee of Federation of Ellakkudi Township Welfare Associations and other welfare associations questioned the delay on the part of the office of the Special DRO/Land Acquisition, National Highways, Tiruchi, in taking appropriate steps, citing the directive issued by the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court during October, 2019, after hearing a writ petition filed by the Federation, that land must be acquired within six months.
The High Court had directed that land must be acquired to a width of 60 metres for overbridges, 50 metres at locations identified as bus stops, and 45 metres at other places along the 14.5 km stretch from Palpannai to Thuvakkudi. The Project Director of NHAI-Thanjavur had even issued the Revised Land Plan Schedule during April this year.
The functionaries flayed the ‘token act’ by the office of DRO Land Acquisition for issuing advertisements in local newspapers for acquiring a mere 68 cents of land for the project, though there have been loss of several lives due to accidents in the absence of the service roads.
‘This constitutes just one per cent of the land required to be acquired for the project,’ S. Sakthivel and S. Subramaniyan, organisers of the federation, said, demanding issue of an advertisement in keeping with the Court ruling within 15 days. The land must be acquired on a rapid pace and compensation must be awarded to the owners within two months, they emphasised, calling for initiation of coordination work by the NHAI with other departments for smooth implementation of the project.