more-in The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) will start laying alignment stones in the 120-km stretch from Thuravoor to Kazhakuttam as part of acquiring land for widening National Highway 66 into a four-lane one with a Right of Way (RoW) of 45 metre. “The recent monsoon fury had upset the plans and delayed the schedule. The consultant had been asked to lay the boundary stones simultaneously in the 120 km stretch, spread over Alappuzha, Kollam and Thiruvananthapuram districts,” a top NHAI official told The Hindu here. Already, land has been acquired for bypasses in Kollam and Alappuzha and the work being executed under the State Public Works Department National Highway wing is in the final stages. In three weeks The laying of the alignment stones would commence next week and would be completed in three weeks, the official said. Only after the NHAI lays alignment stones, the Revenue department can undertake the survey of the land and any anomalies can be rectified by the NHAI. The project is part of the much delayed four/six-laning of NH-66 from Talapady in Kasaragod to Kazhakuttam in Thiruvananthapuram. The NHAI, the executing agency, has set December 2020 as the deadline for completing work. But the State may not be able to complete the acquisition before this month, the deadline set for the same. Notification After the survey, the 3(D) notification and procedures to acquire land by removing houses and other structures on the notified land will follow. This will be followed by the 3(G) notification to estimate the value of the land as per the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation & Resettlement Act, 2013. Compensation The compensation to those being displaced will be awarded as per the recommendation of the Competent Authority for Land Acquisition (CALA) and will be intimated to the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH). The Hybrid Annuity Model — a mix of Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) and Build, Operate, Transfer (BOT) Annuity models — will be adopted to execute the widening work, estimated at ? 26,000 crore, under the Union government’s Bharatmala Pariyojana scheme.

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