Expedite land acquisition for pending rail projects: Vaishnaw tells Kerala CM

New Delhi: Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has shot off a letter to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, asking him to expedite land acquisition for pending rail projects in the state.

Vaishnaw said the Kerala government was able to acquire only 64 hectares against the required 470 hectares despite the Centre making a payment of Rs 2,100 crore for the purpose.

He said the Centre had deposited Rs 282 crore with the Kerala government for acquisition of land for the Angamali-Sabarimala new railway line project.

According to the minister, the total land required for the project was 416 hectares, whereas the state government acquired only 24 hectares.

For the Thiruvananthapuram-Kanyakumari doubling project alone, 33 of the 40 hectares required had been acquired using Rs 1,312 crore allocated by the Railways.

In October, Vijayan met Vaishnaw to push for faster execution of track-doubling projects and the Angamali-Sabarimala project.

The other projects for which land acquisition is pending are Ernakulam-Kumbalam doubling and Kumbalam-Turavur doubling.

“I would request you to issue suitable instructions to the concerned officers to expedite the process of land acquisition so that execution of the above projects can be taken up,” Vaishnaw said.

Currently, railway infrastructure projects costing Rs 12,350 crore are in progress in Kerala and the highest-ever budget outlay of Rs 3,011 crore has been allotted for the 2024-25 fiscal, the Union minister said.