COMMENTARY
INTERVIEWS
SPECIALS
CHAT
ARCHIVES

Pro and anti-airport lobbies work overtime, cast doubts over Kannur project

D Jose in Thiruvananthapuram

The Kannur lobby in Kerala has decided to fight it out for the airport. The issue has already snowballed into a major Centre-state row.

Aviation Secretary P V Jayakrishnan, who belongs to Kannur, has become the butt of criticism after his recent remark that the proposed airport has not received the Centre's clearance.

Chief Minister E K Nayanar has protested to Aviation Minister Anantha Kumar against Jayakrishnan for misleading the people and demanded a clarification.

The bureaucrat had said most of the 120 airports in the country were running up losses, so new airport projects have to be cleared with care.

Kannur leaders see a plot against the project by a certain lobby. The Bharatiya Janata Party government wants to review the project using the bureaucrat's remarks as an alibi, they allege.

The project was cleared by the I K Gujral-led United Front government when Chand Mahal Ibrahim, who has strong connections with Kannur, was the aviation minister.

In fact, criticism also erupted from lobbies representing other airports in Kerala. They questioned the need for a fourth airport in the tiny state.

The Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode lobbies feared that dividing of resources would affect the development of other airports. They felt the government should concentrate on one or two airports for comprehensive development rather than going in for more airports.

They lamented that Thiruvananthapuram airport, which is the only officially recognised international airport in the state, lacked amenities of even a well-developed domestic airport.

The airport is now threatened by the emergence of Nedumbasserry airport at Kochi with international standards and with the expansion of the Karipur airport at Kozhikode.

However, counter lobbying did not have any effect on the Kannur project, which enjoys tremendous political clout from the present Communist dispensation.

Both the chief minister and CPI-M secretary Pinarayi Vijayan have been going all out to get the project going even at the cost of criticism that they were being parochial.

The two, who hail from Kannur district, have been active in starting the spade work after in-principle clearance for the project was accorded by the Centre in December 1997. In fact, land acquisition for the project went on in spite of stiff opposition from those who would be displaced by the project.

The aviation secretary's statement has caused confusion among the officials connected with land acquisition.

The chief minister said the central government had cleared the project based on the detailed techno-economic feasibility study by the National Airports Authority of India. He recalled that Anantha Kumar himself had confirmed this on the floor of Parliament a few months ago.

Kerala Tourism Minister E Chandrashekharan Nair felt the alleged volte-face was another glaring example of the anti-Kerala stand adopted by the civil aviation ministry. He alleged the department had played an unholy role in the recent rescheduling of international flights to Kerala.

Nair said the airfare from Delhi to Thiruvananthapuram was more than that of Delhi to London and Thiruvananthapuram to Singapore. He said the department had refused to heed the pleas made by the government and other agencies in the matter. This, he said, would whittle down the flow of tourists to the state.

Business news

Kerala