Kerala allocates ₹16 crore to acquire land for 45 displaced Ayyankuzhi families
The LSGD has allocated ₹16 crore to acquire land for 45 families in Ayyankuzhi who left their homes after a 220-kV cable fire in July 2025.
The Local Self-Government department has allocated ₹16 crore for the acquisition of land belonging to 45 families in Ayyankuzhi, within Vadavucode-Puthencruz panchayat, offering relief to residents who have sought acquisition of their properties after decades of living amid pollution.
About 9.30 acres is to be acquired for a scientific landfill. Kunnathunadu MLA V.P. Sajeendran said the acquisition process would be set in motion shortly. A district-level purchase committee headed by District Collector G. Priyanka will hold consultations with landowners and carry out the follow-up steps, he added.
Saji Kumar, an office-bearer of the Ayyankuzhi Janakeeya Samithi, welcomed the allocation and said he hoped that subsequent stages, including fixation of the land price and the actual acquisition, would proceed without delay.
The families had vacated their homes after a section of 220-kV electric cables passing through the Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited-Kochi Refinery campus in their neighbourhood caught fire on July 8, 2025. The residents, living on a 9.4-acre strip wedged between two public sector units — Hindustan Organic Chemicals Limited and BPCL-Kochi Refinery — had already been protesting and demanding that their land be acquired, after the Kerala State Pollution Control Board certified the area as a 'red zone' unfit for habitation when the accident occurred.
The families were first moved to a lodge in Chottanikkara and later to rented houses, after they refused to return to their homes. The then LDF government subsequently decided to purchase the land directly in order to establish a solid waste treatment facility under the Kerala Solid Waste Management Project, which is aided by the World Bank. The direct purchase route was chosen to avoid delays and cost overruns in completing the project and to reduce litigation over compensation by negotiating with the affected families.
A final decision on whether to proceed through direct purchase or through acquisition under the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act had remained pending.