A high-level meeting convened by the government here on Tuesday to expedite the land acquisition for further development of the international airport turned out to be farce.
The meeting failed to make any headway on the request made by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) as the local legislator and Minister for Health and Devaswom V.S. Sivakumar and Shashi Tharoor, MP, did not turn up. District Collector Biju Prabhakar, who is indisposed, also could not make it to the meeting.
However, Minister for Industries P.K. Kunhalikutty, Minister for Revenue Adoor Prakash, Minister for Social Justice and Panchayat M.K. Muneer, Minister for Aiports and Excise K. Babu and E. T. Mohammed Basheer, MP, turned up as the development of Kozhikode international airport also was included in the agenda.
While concrete steps were taken to acquire the land needed for Kozhikode airport, no decision was taken on the request put forward by the AAI to take steps to acquire the 7.49 hectares on the Chakkai side that was notified in August 2014.
Apart from the Airport Director George G. Tharakan, there was no one to take up the case of the premier international airport of the State. The officials of the NATPAC and Kerala Fire and Rescue Services were the others present at the meeting in addition to the AAI officials.
The AAI is demanding the land for extending the modern terminal that has come up on the city side towards Vallakadavu side to create an Integrated terminal to meet the future challenges and for completing the works of the taxiway.
The residents of the Vallakadavu-Vayamoola area are up in arms against the move of the district administration to acquire 32.8 hectares of land further needed for the airport and the peoples representatives not turning up for the meeting has raised suspicion.
At the meeting, the AAI pointed out the urgency for taking steps to expedite the land acquisition for 7.49 hectares of land for which a consensus had been reached with the locals.
The AAI officials took up the request to close the road from All Saints College to Shangmughom side along the boundary wall of the airport to enable the expansion of the taxi way. However, the meeting was told that a NATPAC study has found that closure of the road was not feasible.
The AAI is demanding land for extending the modern terminal to create an integrated terminal to meet
future challenges.
