Former Kerala police chief Loknath Behera to be new Kochi Metro MD

Former Kerala police chief Loknath Behera would be the new Managing Director of Kochi Metro Rail Limited. The state cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday decided to appoint Behera as the MD of KMRL for a period of three years, a government release said. After completing five years as state police chief, Behera had retired from service in June this year. In other important cabinet decisions, the government has given its nod to acquire land in 11 districts for the proposed Semi High Speed Railway Line Project from Kasargod to Thiruvananthapuram.

Various posts and a special deputy collector office and 11 special tahsildar offices have been created for acquiring land for implementing the government's ambitious project called as Silverline. The government said 955.13 hectares of land from various villages in in Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Alappuzha, Pathanamthitta, Kottayam, Ernakulam, Thrissur, Kozhikode, Malappuram, Kannur and Kasaragod districts will be acquired for the project. 

 

The land acquisition will be carried out as per the provisions of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013 (LARR) once the final approval for the project is obtained from the Railway Board, the release said.

The release said the cabinet also decided to implement the digital re-survey project in 1,550 villages in the state and allocated Rs 339.438 crore for the first phase of the project which is to be completed in four phases. It also said Rs 807.98 crore is the expected cost for completing the project. The cabinet decided to provide Rs 2.5 lakh relief to parents of Praveen Nair, who died in Nepal last year after accidentally inhaling poisonous gas from a heater in a room during a tour there. It also sanctioned Rs 10 lakh from the Chief Minister Distress Relief Fund for the education of Madhav Ranjith, the only child of Renjith and Indu Lakshmi, who died in the same accident.