House panel: Shelve airport at Aranmula
http://newindianexpress.com/nation/House-panel-Shelve-airport-at-Aranmula/2013/05/04/article1574117.ece
04th
May 2013 08:45 AM
The Parliamentary Standing Committee
on Transport, Tourism and Culture has recommended reconsideration of the
proposed airport at Aranmula on the grounds that it violates the government
policy of not allowing a new greenfield airport within 150 km of an existing
airport.
The committee headed by CPM leader
Sitaram Yechury, in its report, a copy of which is with Express, said, “The
committee finds that the proposed greenfield airport at Aranmula is 120 km
away from Thiruvananthapuram and 90 km from Kochi, where there are
international airports and it ‘is violative of the government policy of
not allowing an airport within 150 km’.
The report further stated that the
international airports in Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi are new ones.
“The committee notes that the
proposed Aranmula airport is violating the 150-km distance rule and the
saturation, in terms of capacity, of nearby existing airports. The committee
therefore recommends that the proposal for the construction of Aranmula airport
may be reconsidered by the government,” the report stated.
Before coming out with the report,
the panel asked for existing guidelines for setting up a second airport within
an airport limit, and found that Chapter eight of Policy on Airport
Infrastructure indicates that no greenfield airport will be normally allowed
within an aerial distance of 150 km of an existing airport.
A greenfield airport may be
permitted where an existing one is unable to meet the projected needs of
traffic or a new point of traffic emerges with sufficient viability.
Parliamentary panel findings hailed
The
Thiruvaranmula Paithruka Grama Karma Samiti (TPGKS) has welcomed the report of
the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism, and Culture chaired
by Sitaram Yechury that found there was no need for setting up an airport at
Aranmula in the 150-km radius of an international airport in Kerala.
Samiti
general convener P.R. Shaji said the Parliamentary committee’s report was a
supporting factor to the stand taken by the people of Aranmula on the
controversial private airport project.
Mr.
Shaji expressed hope that the Union government would accept the committee’s
report and cancel clearances accorded to it without delay. The people’s action
council’s strong fears were that the controversial private airport project at
Aranmula involved alarming environmental and legal issues, he said. The
Revolutionary Youth Front (RYF), too, welcomed the Parliamentary panel’s
findings on the airport project.
Saleem
P. Chacko, RYF national executive committee member, said the panel’s
recommendation was a recognition to the ongoing mass movement against the
project.
Cancel clearances: CPI
The
Communist Party of India (CPI) has called upon the Union and the State
governments to cancel whatever clearances they had granted for setting up the
proposed private airport project at Aranmula in the wake of the findings of the
parliamentary standing committee.
In a
statement here on Friday, P. Prasad, CPI district secretary, said the committee
findings had exposed the fact that various clearances granted to the controversial
airport project by the Union Ministries of Defence and Civil Aviation were
against the laws of the land.
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