Thrissur: For over 140 individuals, owning a house in the Life Mission apartment complex in Wadakkancherry has remained an elusive dream, fraught with challenges over the years. 

The controversial project has seen Rs 16 crore invested, yet people have waited in vain for half a decade to secure a promised 500-square-foot home.

An agreement was signed between the Kerala government's Life Mission and the UAE's Red Crescent authority on July 11, 2019. 

The complex is now in ruins, inhabited by wild animals. Access is difficult due to a two-kilometre-long steep climb on a narrow, single-track road. Flex boards that once boasted of development during the inauguration of the first flat are now dilapidated. Overgrown plants and trees obscure the view of the buildings, which are deteriorating and leaking.

If you walk about 200 metres past this flat along what appears to be a forest path, three other dilapidated, mossy, and run-down complexes come into view. There is no longer a path to reach the fifth complex and the hospital building. 

The hospital building named the ‘Healthcare Centre’ that was built in collaboration with Saint Ventures seems to have been vandalised by miscreants. Wood and other costly items have been looted. 

LIFE Mission Row

In 2019, UAE-based Red Crescent signed an agreement with LIFE Mission to construct housing complexes on 2.18 acres of land at Charalparambu in Wadakkanchery. 

Later, the construction contract was awarded to Unitac Builders and Sane Ventures. The construction started with the allocation of Rs 19 crore by the Red Crescent.

The scam came out after M. Sivasankar, the former principal secretary to the Kerala Chief Minister, was arrested on February 14, 2023, for allegedly violating the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA) in the LIFE Mission project.

After the CBI registered a case, the construction company withdrew from the contract, and construction work stalled. It was revealed that Unitac builders gave kickbacks to Sivasankar and the Consul General of the UAE to bag the contract.

As a result, the housing complex and nearby amenities in Wadakkanchery have been left unattended for the past three years. In December 2022, LDF MLA Xavier Chittilappilly raised the issue in the state assembly, a few months after Anil Akkara MLA first drew public attention to the alleged scam in Wadakkancherry and demanded the resumption of construction works. Despite assurances from Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, the project remains suspended.