High level meet to finalise metro land swap deal at Thiruvananthapuram

Kochi: A high level meeting convened by Chief Minister Oomen Chandy at Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday finalised the land swap deal between Kochi Metro Rail Limited, Greater Cochin Development Authority and St. Albert’s College management.

The revenue department has taken over 88 cents of land from St Albert’s College and 74 cents from the GCDA for the construction of the Metro station near Jawaharlal Nehru International stadium.

“During the meeting it has been decided to refer the land swap proposal for the approval of the next cabinet meeting. Since, the college authorities have to clear lease rent of some of the buildings in the leased land, the swap deal should be cleared by the cabinet. Once the cabinet approves the deal, the land will be handed over. Before that, the district collector has been asked to hand over the possession certificate to us,” said GCDA chairman N Venugopal, who attended the meeting.

St Albert’s College occupies 4.84 acres of land in front of the stadium, for which the college authorities owe lease rent arrears to the government. St. Albert’s management will be given 88 cents of land near the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium for relocating their playground, taken over for the Metro project. Meanwhile, GCDA will be given land behind the High Court.

The meeting was attended by ministers K. Babu, Aryadan Muhammad, Adoor Prakash, Revenue principal secretary, secretary, district collector M. G Rajamanickam, KMRL general manager, GCDA secretary R. Lalu, St. Albert’s college principal, manager and other officials also attended the meeting.