Title - Four years on, jobs still elude Moolampilly evictees

Four-and-a-half years after the state government passed an order ensuring jobs to one member from each of the families of Moolampilly evictees, the assurance seems to be a distant dream. Even after the Port Trust expressed its inability to provide jobs, the twoministerial committees appointed by the state government have still not come up with any concrete solution to the issue.The Port Trust is of the stand that it will not be possible to provide jobs as it is already overstaffed. “When the container operations were shifted to the International Container Transshipment Terminal (ICTT) at Vallarpadom, the staff at the then container terminal lost jobs.“The Port Trust had to reinstate those persons. Moreover, the Vallarpadom terminal is operated by a private company and hence it is not within our capacity to provide jobs at the new terminal. We have been emphasising this right from the beginning,” said a spokesperson of the Cochin Port Trust. But the government order (MS) O2/O8/RD dated 19 March 2008 issued by the then Revenue Principal Secretary Nivedita P Haran made the provision for jobs for evictees mandatory.The order directs the Port Trust to undertake steps to provide employment, according to their educational qualification, to one member of each of the families which were evicted from Kadamakudy and Moolampilly villages for the land acquisition for the ICTT, Vallarpadam, and for the railway track for the project.

 After a prolonged delay in providing the jobs, the state government had assigned  Union Minister of State for Food and Consumer Affairs K V Thomas and Home Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan to take up the issue with the Cochin Port Trust. But that too seems to have fizzled out.

 “Last year the Moolampilly Coordination Committee had held talks with the ministers on the issue. But after that we have not received any intimation from the government. As far as the jobs are concerned, we are not adamant that it should be at the International Container Transshipment Terminal itself. Several government projects have come up in areas which are linked to the ICTT. A job in any of these projects would suffice,”said Francis Kalathinkal, convener of the Moolampilly Coordination Committee