The KGS Aranmula airport, billed to be the country’s first private international airport coming up at Aranmula, 75 km from the Sabarimala temple, has hit the air pocket once again.
More than a half of Kerala legislators , including six of the ruling United Democratic Front, have petitioned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to stop the controversial airport in its tracks.
In a memorandum, 72 of Kerala’s 141 MLAs complained that the airport, being built by the Chennai-based KGS group and supported by the UDF Government, would damage the environment, destruct vast stretches of wetland, and take the gloss off the heritage village of Aranmula, home to the famed Parthasarathy Temple.
K. Muraleedharan, son of the late Congress strongman K. Karunakaran, has said he would be the “73{+r}{+d} MLA” to add muscle to the demand for scrapping the airport project, though he had not signed the petition. Muraleedharan is now a key member of a faction in the Congress that is pitted against Chief Minister Oommen Chandy’s faction.
The petition is also signed by a number of jurists, including V.R. Krishna Iyer; environmental activists; poets; writers; filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan and several social and cultural activists.
“This project has no moral, scientific or legal grounds for its existence,” the petition says. “It is impractical, anti-people, and would cause irreversible damage to the environment.” The petition urged the Prime Minister to reject environment clearance for the project and ask the Kerala Government to “totally drop this project.”
CONTROVERSIAL PROJECT
The Rs. 2000-crore airport project, coming up on 700 acres amid greenery, wetlands and rice farms, has attracted the wrath of local residents and environmentalists from the beginning. One major argument of the opponents is that in Kerala, there are already three international airports — Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kannur — and another is coming up at Kannur.Thiruvananthapuram towards south from Aranmula and Kochi towards north are hardly 100 km away.The new airport would also fly in the face of a number laws made to protect the wetlands, paddy fields and water sources, the opponents claim.
The heritage and pilgrimage status of Aranmula and the project’s closeness to the Pampa — a river many Hindus consider holy because of its association with Lord Ayyappa — are also serious concerns.
However, those supporting the project recall that 4,200 acres, including a vast stretch of paddy fields and wetlands, were acquired for the Cochin international airport.
The country’s first airport under the PPP model, Kochi had faced stiff resistance from several quarters in the 1990s.
But the airport had proved to be a huge success. It emerged as the fourth busiest airport in the country in terms of international arrivals and also spurred economic development in the Kochi region.They also point out that a tenth of Kerala’s 33-million population live and work outside Kerala and, hence, one more airport would not be superfluous.
But, will the KGS group be able to overcome the collective political opposition of the majority of MLAs?