Union Minister of State for Aviation VK Singh officially announced that Chennai’s second airport will be located at Parantur in Kanchipuram district on August 1. The announcements related to the new airport have brought joy to various parties such as rulers, industrialists and residents of Chennai. But the people of Parantur panchayat, which looks like an agricultural zone with agricultural lands, cattle grazing on barren land and lotus lakes, are protesting against this.
In this case, the friends of Earth have requested that the Parantur airport project should be re-examined. In a statement issued by them in this regard, “Section 10 of the Land Acquisition Act states that the government should refrain from acquiring agricultural land for development projects. According to the section in the Act, no agricultural land shall be acquired for a project to ensure food security. Out of the total 4,563.56 acres to be acquired for Parantur Airport, about 3,246 acres will be acquired.” The land is Nansei (2,446.79) and Bunsei (799.59). FOR SETTING UP OF GREENFIELD AIRPORTS). The demand has been pending for a long time, and if it is upgraded and international “code sharing” is introduced, the need for a new airport for Chennai will disappear. Therefore, the Tamil Nadu government has the option of expanding Chennai airport, or expanding Coimbatore and Trichy airports, or getting international recognition for Madurai airport. And development centered only on Chennai is not the right situation,” it said.
Also, “climate change has questioned human existence today, protecting the environment, ensuring food security and protecting water bodies is the main duty today. In this background, we request the government to abandon the “Greenfield” airport project that the government is planning to set up in Paranthur and take alternative routes.