Representatives of 13 villages where the new Parandur airport project has been proposed, met Tamil Nadu government ministers on Tuesday and demanded that the project be taken elsewhere or dropped from being implemented in Parandur.
Chennai,UPDATED: Dec 21, 2022 01:26 IST
Representatives of 13 villages, where the Parandur new airport project has been proposed, met ministers on Tuesday. (Representational image)
By Akshaya Nath: Representatives of 13 villages where the new Parandur airport project has been proposed, met Tamil Nadu government ministers on Tuesday and demanded that the project be taken elsewhere or dropped from being implemented in Parandur.
At the Secretariat, Public Works Minister E V Velu, Industries Minister Thangam Thennarasu and Rural Industries Minister T M Anbarasan held talks with farmers. This meeting comes at a time when the villagers were planning to hold a black flag march towards the Kanchipuram Collectorate.
During the meeting, a group of ministers apprised the villagers of the Kancheepuram district that an expert committee would examine geological and hydrological features of areas in and around Parandur, where a greenfield airport is proposed to be set up.
People who oppose the airport project in their neighbourhood, however, said they would continue to protest till the government announced that the new airport would not come up in their villages. It was the 147th day of protest on December 20.
The state government had earlier promised that they would pay 3.5 times to 4 times the rate of the market value as compensation to villagers. The contention of the farmers has been that out of the 4,783 acres of land proposed for constructing the Rs 20,000 crore airport, approx 3,500 acres of land is agricultural land.
The villagers who are dependent on agriculture stated that any kind of compensation will not help in creating financial security for them.
Subramanian from Ekanapuram village said, “For the last 147 days, we have been objecting and protesting to the proposal for a new airport in Parandur. We had a meeting with three ministers and made them aware of the drawbacks to the livelihood of people.”
“There are water bodies which hold excess water during heavy rain and these water bodies will be affected by the construction of the airport. This will in turn affect villages nearby as well as Chennai. In today’s meeting with the three minister we told them again about the issues we might face if the new airport was to be made there. During the recent rains also, excessive rainwater caused localised flooding,” he added.
Ministers said that a tender will be passed to assess the usability of the land using the pre-feasibility test. 1,000 acres of land to be acquired is a water body. “Officials said that the tender will be allotted to a company which will do a feasibility test and based on their report only will the decision be taken on whether this place will be used to build the new airport or not,” informed the ministers to the villagers.
Selvaperunthugai, Congress MLA from Sriperumbudur, said, “I am with my constituency people. Protesters’ demand is very reasonable. A report from Anna University and IIT will decide on the feasibility of the airport. Is the land suitable for airport construction or not will be decided after feasibility report.”
