Kerala CM Vijayan set to meet PM Modi tomorrow
Mar 23, 2022
Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala) [India], March 23 : Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan is set to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday, Kerala government sources said on Wednesday.
This comes just a day after the Kerala Chief Minister informed that the land acquisition process for the Kochi-Bangalore Industrial Corridor, a leap forward in the industrial sector of Kerala, is progressing rapidly. "Out of 2242 acres of land identified, the acquisition of 87 per cent is expected to be completed by May 2022," he said.
Further, this meeting holds crucial importance as several people across Kerala are protesting against the SilverLine project. The first major protest happened in Kottayam's Madampally on March 18.
Vijayan earlier this month said that Left Democratic Front (LDF) led Kerala government will implement the SilverLine project while assuring that the state government would pay four times the prevailing market prices as compensation for acquiring land.
"The LDF government will implement the SilverLine project. There are attempts to mislead people. 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," said Vijayan.
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.
It is also being opposed by the opposition Congress-led UDF, which has been alleging that the project is "unscientific and impractical" and will put a huge financial burden on the state.
