Kannur (Kerala) [India], March 22 (ANI): Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that the LDF government will implement the SilverLine project and assured that the state government would pay four times the prevailing market prices as compensation for acquiring land. CM Vijayan, who came to Kannur to inaugurate the CPIM Puthur local committee office, said, “The LDF government will implement the SilverLine project. There are attempts to mislead people.”
He further said that the project is for the future generation. “Now, there is only one trip from Kochi to Thiruvananthapuram. But after the SilverLine project is implemented, there would be innumerable trips,” he added.
The CM also assured to pay four times the market price as compensation for the land acquisition. Vijayan said, “It is natural that people whose land is being acquired for the project will be disappointed. But I want to tell you that the government will pay four times the market price as compensation. We should not support such narrow-minded politics.”
People from across Kerala are protesting against laying the survey stones for the SilverLine project for the past couple of days. The first major protest happened in Kottayam’s Madampally on March 18. Meanwhile, the opposition leaders also boycotted the proceeding of the Kerala Assembly and protested against the SilverLine project following the stir by locals in Madampally.
The 529-km SilverLine railway project will link Thiruvananthapuram in the south to Kasaragod in north Kerala, covering 11 districts through 11 stations. The journey between two stations is expected to take four hours, whereas it currently takes 12 hours to reach from one end to another. (ANI)
Kerala: Amid protests survey stones for rail project installed in Kozhikode
Kozhikode (Kerala) [India], March 22 (ANI): Amid the protest against the SilveLine semi high-speed rail project, the survey stones were installed under police protection on Monday in Kozhikode district of Kerala.
Earlier, Union Minister of State V Muraleedharan had said that BJP will not allow the state government to implement an anti-people project (rail project) by force.
“What is going on in the name of SilverLine project displays atrocities against women. State Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan is behaving like a quiet monocrat,” said V Muraleedharan. The residents of Madampally near Changanassery in Kottayam started a protest on Friday after the officials of the K-Rail project came to demarcate land and to lay survey stones for the SilverLine project.
Following this, workers of BJP and Congress reached the spot and started raising slogans against the Pinarayi Vijayan-led LDF government. Entire Kerala is protesting against the SilverLine project. The project will adversely impact the environment because the state is an ecologically fragile place. The government did not carry out any geological or location surveys. The Railway Minister in Parliament had said that they had given in-principle approval for the draft proposal for the project and not for the construction. The state government acquiring the land without the approval of the Ministry of Railways,” said VD Satheesan, Leader of Opposition (LoP), Kerala Assembly.
The Kerala government’s ambitious Silverline project, which is expected to reduce travel time from Thiruvananthapuram to Kasaragod to around four hours, is being opposed by the opposition Congress-led UDF, which has been alleging that it was “unscientific and impractical” and will put a huge financial burden on the state. (ANI)
