Close on the heels of the airport extension of Seaport-Airport Road getting an impetus in the form of the Naval Armament Depot (NAD) deciding to hand over 2.50 hectares of land for the project earlier this month, the Supreme Court has in an interim order permitted the handing over of 1.63 hectares in the possession of HMT to the Roads and Bridges Development Corporation of Kerala (RBDCK) to execute the proposed extension.
This will be done after the RBDCK deposits ₹16.34 crore for the land in a nationalised bank. It is expected to give further impetus to the airport extension of the road.
A high-level meeting convened a fortnight ago by Ministers P. Rajeev, K. Rajan, and P.A. Mohamed Riyas had decided to seek the apex court’s permission to deposit the amount in a nationalised bank.
The Kerala High Court had earlier ruled that the State government owned the land. The interim order of the apex court came on an appeal that HMT filed before it. The compensation amount was arrived at based on the base price of the land in 2014. HMT had sought compensation based on the 2024 rate, according to a release.
