Land acquisition for Erumely airport receives administrative sanction

The State government has granted administrative sanction for the acquisition of land for the proposed airport at Erumely.

The order, according to sources, empowers the government to proceed with the acquisition of land in accordance with the Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation, and Resettlement (LARR) Act, 2013.

It states that the government, as suggested by the expert committee, should consider the possibility of offering a special package when appointing an administrator for land acquisition under the LARR Act.

The new order was issued after considering the social impact assessment report, recommendations of an expert committee based on the SIA report, and the District Collector’s report on it. In the report, the District Collector had stated that land shall be acquired under Section 7 (5) of the LARR Act.

This is the second time that the government is going through the land acquisition process, as the previous notifications for both the SIA and land acquisition were revoked by the government following objections from the Ayana Charitable Trust (formerly Gospel for Asia) and local residents whose land was set to be acquired.

As per the new order, a total of 1,039.876 ha (2,570 acres) of land in Erumely South and Manimala villages can be acquired for the airport project. This includes the 2,263-acre Cheruvally Estate and 307 acres located outside the estate.

In the next step, the government will issue a notification for land acquisition under Section 11(1) of the LARR Act, which is the preliminary notification for land acquisition. Subsequently, the government will begin the official survey of the land as per Section 12 and prepare a file of the precise extent of land to be acquired along with its survey numbers. It will be followed by a declaration of the rehabilitation and resettlement (RR) package, as outlined in Section 19 (1) of the LARR Act.