JOIN USParandur villagers to march to Tamil Nadu Assembly to protest airport plans
The opposition to the Tamil Nadu government’s plan to build a second airport for Chennai near Kanchipuram is gaining strength with residents of Parandur and 12 neighbouring villages planning to march towards the state Assembly next week as it is set to convene for a short session.
The villagers, who refuse to part with their land for the greenfield airport project, will begin their march from Parandur on October 17 when the Tamil Nadu Assembly convenes. They plan to reach the Assembly premises on October 18 to register their protest.
In a public announcement, the villagers said they will begin the foot march from the place where a statue of B R Ambedkar is located in Parandur on October 17. “Since we plan to cover the distance by walking, we request people to join us in expressing our opposition to the airport project,” a public notice issued by the villagers said.
The public notice says it isn’t fair to destroy water bodies like lakes and ponds near Parandur and other villages to build a greenfield airport for Chennai. “It is also not healthy to raze down hundreds of Hindu temples that bear testimony to the history of a thousand years for the project,” the notice alleged.
The villagers have been up in arms since mid-August after the government decided to build the airport at a cost of Rs 20,000 crore, alleging that such a move would “wipe away” agriculture in the locality besides putting large water bodies in danger.
Poovulagin Nanbargal, an organisation fighting for the protection of environment, released a report on the project recently saying around 1,317 acres of land of the total 4,000 acres to be acquired for Parandur airport are classified as porambokku (wasteland) of which nearly 1,000 acres are covered by lakes, ponds, and small water bodies.
It also said over 3,000 acres of land being acquired for the project are agricultural land which would put the food security under threat. However, the government is keen on implementing the project and has restricted access to the village.
The new airport, which is expected to be built at a cost of Rs 20,000 crore, will have two runways, multiple terminal buildings, taxiways, aprons, and cargo terminal among other infrastructure. It is being built to handle about 10 crore passengers a year.
The location is close to the Chennai-Bengaluru National Highway and Sriperumbudur that boasts of massive industrial estates owned by the state government which plans to develop a new township around the proposed airport that would also decongest Chennai.
Though the number of flights and the daily footfall have increased manifold over the years, the city is bereft of a swanky airport like the ones Bengaluru and Hyderabad boast of. The AAI has been expanding the terminal buildings in the existing airport to cater to the ever-increasing rush but a new airport is long overdue.
The government’s 2006 plan to construct a greenfield airport in Sriperumbudur did not take off due to a slew of factors, including opposition from PMK, which was an ally of the then DMK government. Efforts by the AIADMK government between 2011 and 2021 in this regard also did not fructify.
Besides Chennai, Tamil Nadu has four operational airports – Tiruchirapalli, Madurai, Coimbatore, and Thoothukudi. The state government has now commissioned a study to explore the feasibility of setting up an airport in the industrial city of Hosur located just outside Bengaluru.