Committee condoles dying of key determine behind Moolampilly Rehabilitation Package

The forceful eviction of 10 households from Moolampilly, within the idyllic village of Kadamakkudy, for the rail and highway connectivity to the Vallarpadam International Container Transshipment Terminal (ICTT) on February 6, 2008, marked a tumultuous episode in the course of the tenure of former Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan.

The affected households launched a protest the very subsequent day at Menaka Junction, demanding rehabilitation and compensation. It continued till March 22, 2008, when the State authorities introduced a rehabilitation package deal that has since come to be often known as the ‘Moolampilly Rehabilitation Package’.

Hardly a fortnight after the eviction, on February 20, Mr. Achuthanandan made a hard-hitting assertion, alleging that the Moolampilly protest had been infiltrated by ‘Maoist parts’. The subsequent day, the late jurist V.R. Krishna Iyer, who had been on the forefront of the protest for the rights of the evictees, held a press convention on the protest pandhal, taking problem with the Chief Minister’s assertion.

Mr. Achuthanandan was in Kochi that weekend to attend three completely different programmes. He dropped in at Mr. Iyer’s home and expressed remorse for his assertion, clarifying that he had been misled by bureaucrats. “V.S.’ greatness was in accepting the error and expressing remorse,” mentioned Francis Kalathungal, common convener, Moolampilly Rehabilitation Package Coordination Committee.

Mr. Achuthanandan went additional and undertook extra course correction when his authorities declared the rehabilitation package deal. A Cabinet subcommittee comprising then Ministers for Revenue, Law, and Registration—Ok.P. Rajendran, M. Vijayakumar, and S. Sarma, respectively—formulated the package deal after holding consultations with MLAs, political social gathering representatives, and affected households. The package deal was notified by then Revenue Principal Secretary Nivedita P. Haran on March 19, 2008, following which the affected households referred to as off their protest three days later.

The assertion issued by the coordination committee condoling his dying on Monday (July 21, 2025) credited the late former Chief Minister as the important thing determine behind the package deal. That the package deal stays solely partially applied 17 years later, nonetheless, continues to be a sore level.

As many as 316 households had been evicted from the villages of Mulavukad, Moolampilly, Kothad, Cheranalloor, Eloor, Manjummal, Vaduthala, Elamakkara, and Ponekkara for rail and highway connectivity to the ICTT.