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Govt may reconsider Kannur airport issue

D Jose in Thiruvananthapuram

Union Civil Aviation minister Sharad Yadav has kept alive the hopes of the Kerala government on the proposed Kannur airport saying that his statement in the Parliament that the project was 'not feasible' was not the last word on the issue.

The minister gave sufficient indications that the government would reconsider the issue during the meeting he had with chief minister E K Nayanar on Sunday and in a meet the press programme he addressed at the Kesari Memorial Journalist's Trust at Thiruvananhapuram on Monday.

The Kannur airport project was discussed during the meeting Yadav had with Nayanar immediately after he was discharged from the Medical College Hospital. Nayanar, who was advised complete bed rest by the doctors had come to his office to meet Yadav. The minister, who was on a two-day visit of Kerala to lay the foundation stone for the Rs 900-million new passenger terminal at the Thiruvananthapuram International Airport, said that the Kannur issue was not a closed chapter.

He said that there were legal problems in permitting an airport within 150 km from an existing airport. The distance between the Kannur airport and the proposed airport at Kannur is less than 150 km. The minister said that a proposal to relax the norm was under being considered by the Prime Minister and added that he would take up the Kannur airport issue with Vajpayee.

Yadav's statement in the Parliament in May last year had come as a shock to the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist. The project has the backing of the powerful Malabar lobby, including Chief Minister E K Naynar and CPI-M state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan. The Airport Action Committee formed for lobbying for the airport has the chief minister as patron and the party secretary as chairman.

There has been no paucity of funds for preliminary works on the airport. The government has set up a project office with adequate staff and funds for execution of the preliminary works. Besides, an office of the special tehsildar has also been set up to acquire the land required for the project. Out of 1,277 acres identified for acquisition, more than 100 acres have already been acquired despite stiff resistance from those to be displaced by the acquisition.

The civil aviation minister's latest statement is expected to speed up the process for land acquisition. If the project is cleared by the Central government, Kannur would be the fourth airport in Kerala.

Out of the three airports it has at present, the Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi airports are international airports. Though the third airport at Kozhikode has not been declared as 'international', Indian Airlines and Air-India have been operating their flights to international destinations from there.

The Kannur airport is considered as a sound economic proposition since the northern districts coming under its feeder area have large number of people working in the Gulf countries. Besides, the Naval Academy coming up at Ezhimala near Kannur is also expected to give a fillip to the economic prospect of the proposed airport.

The chief minister has had some discussions with a French company to construct the airport with 12,000-feet long runway. A Japanese company has also been identified for financing the project. The project is sought to be promoted by the state government with a private firm on a build-own-transfer, or BOT, basis.

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