Land deal for varsity in his name makes Ezhuthachan squirm in his grave

The ruling LDF and the opposition locked horns in the Assembly on Thursday in the name of Thunchath Ezhuthachan, the father of Malayalam language.

The UDF members led by opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala walked out in a huff, not even bothering to say they were staging a walkout, after Speaker P Sreeramarkishnan refused to allow them to move an adjournment motion on a land deal related to Thunchath Ezhuthachan Malayalam University in Malappuram district.

The Speaker said the negotiations for acquiring land had begun long before and the issue did not have the requisite urgency to be raised as an adjournment motion. The opposition leader but said a government order to acquire land was issued very recently on June 3. “We hear that steps are on to hand over the money in two or three days. That's why the urgency,” Chennithala said. The Speaker refused to relent. The opposition then trooped out of the House shouting that there was huge corruption in the deal.

The war of words later played out in the media room within the legislative complex. The issue related to the acquisition of 11 acres of land in Vettom village at Tirur in Malappuram.

Higher education minister K T Jaleel said all decisions related to the identification and acquisition of land were taken during the UDF tenure. Way back in 2012, the initial plan was to acquire 100 acres for the Malayalam University at Athavanad Village, which too is in Tirur. The plan was dropped following stiff objection raised by the public.

Three years later in 2015, the former UDF government issued an order to acquire 17.21 acres of land in Vettom village through the negotiated purchase route. “An amount of Rs 25 crore was also disbursed from the plan head of the Education Department for the acquisition of the land in September 2015,” Jaleel said.

He said the meeting of the price assessment committee convened by the then Malappuram collector on February 17, 2016, had fixed the cost of the land at Rs 1.70 lakh a cent. “Consequent to this, Benchmark Educational Trust wrote to the university vice-chancellor saying that the price was too high and that it could provide land at a cheaper cost of Rs 1.20 lakh a cent,” the minister said.

However, a technical committee formed by the VC found the earlier Vettom land to be more suitable. The government, too, had constituted an expert panel headed by the revenue additional chief secretary to go into the relative merits of the land. “They too said Vettom was more suited for the University,” Jaleel said. He said six acres of swamp and mangroves were taken out of the area that would not be purchased by the state. Meaning, only 11 acres of the land will now be acquired.

The Malappuram collector then called for a re-negotiation and the price was brought down by Rs 10,000 a cent. “The LDF government had actually brought down the price. Is this what they call corruption,” Jaleel asked.

The UDF leaders admit that it was during their tenure that Vettom land was chosen but insist that they did not take a decision on the cost. But hadn't the price assessment committee under the collector fixed the price at Rs 1.70 lakh a cent during the UDF tenure? “The collector did fix the cost but the file was sent to the government only on July 22 that year and by then we were out of power,” said Muslim League's Tirur MLA C Mammutty.

“We were shocked by the cost and I had promptly sent a letter to the chief minister. When there was no response, we tried to route the letter through the opposition leader,” Mammutty said. According to him, the cost of the land in Tirur is “shockingly low”. “You will not believe but it is only Rs 9000 a cent,” Mammutty said. “We have documents that show that the owners who are now selling the land to the state had actually purchased the land for mere Rs 9000 a cent,” Mammutty said.

He further alleged that the land belongs to the brother of a sitting LDF MLA. He, however, did not reveal the name of the MLA. M K Muneer said the present owners of the land came into possession of the land only after the LDF had come to power.