Authorities have expedited the process of acquiring land for constructing a bridge across the Pampa river connecting Kavalam and Thattassery in Kuttanad.
A survey to fix the boundary of the land to be acquired for the project has begun. According to officials, around 1.45 acre of land in 51 survey numbers in Kavalam and Kunnumma villages will have to be acquired for the project.
Earlier this year, the process of acquiring land for the bridge came to a halt after an inspection found that some of the land needed for the project was missing from the notification issued. However, a meeting chaired by District Collector A. Alexander in September decided to initiate immediate steps to acquire the land. Further, a fresh notification was issued.
In 2016, the State government allocated ₹30 crore for the construction of the bridge and approach road. The estimate was later revised to ₹51.5 crore following changes made in the design. The original plan was to acquire the land through direct negotiated purchase. However, some landowners demanded a change in the alignment.
As the alignment was fixed by the Inland Waterways Authority, officials rejected their demand. Later, the Revenue Department ended the move to acquire land through negotiated purchase.
Following this, in November 2018 the department announced that the Land Acquisition Rehabilitation and Resettlement (LARR) Act would be invoked to acquire land for the construction of the bridge and the landowners were given time till December 1, 2018, to hand over the consent letters. However, the authorities failed to take follow-up action until the turn of this year.
The bridge will connect the Alappuzha-Changanassery (AC) road and Main Central (MC) road. It will help reduce the distance between Alappuzha and Kottayam by around 9 km along with opening the doors of development to the remote areas of Kuttanad. Once constructed, the bridge and approach road will be 396.21-metres-long. The bridge and walkway together will have a width of 11 metres.
