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Centre blames Kerala for delay in Thiruvananthapuram international airport

D Jose in Thiruvananthapuram

Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayanthi Natarajan blamed the Kerala government for the tardy growth of the Thiruvananthapuram international airport. The Kerala assembly speaker, M Vijayakumar, and some others had alleged that the airport's development was being undermined by a caucus of hoteliers and travel agents in Bombay and Delhi, who are afraid of a loss of business should the Thiruvananthapuram international airport develop.

The minister, who arrived in the state capital to examine the complaint, said that the developmental works were being hampered due to the delay in the acquisition of land and completion of the techno-feasibility study.

She said work on the new international terminal could start only after the the techno-feasibility study was received from the Airport Development Society and 27 acres of land acquired immediately to construct the terminal building. However, both the study and the land transfer had been delayed due to a variety of reasons. she added.

The minister was silent on the provision of the necessary funds required to acquire a total of 230 acres of land to build the entire airport. She pointed out that the civil aviation ministry had to generate its own funds as the Indian government did not provide it budgetary support.

Jayanthi stressed that her ministry had not ordered the suspension of the work, and reiterated the Centre's determination to complete the airport's development in a planned manner.

The Kerala government's proposal to generate nearly Rs 2 billion to acquire the land by imposing a user fee on passengers was turned down by the government due to legal problems, which angered the state authorities.

The state officials insist that there is no justification in turning down the proposal when other airports in the country, including the Kozhikode airport in Kerala, were allowed to impose user fee on passengers to raise development funds.

Meanwhile, a meeting of the legislators from Thiruvananthapuram, chaired by the speaker, urged the state government to find the funds needed to acquire the 27 acres of land immediately to construct the new international terminal building.

Since the civil aviation ministry had taken the stand that the work on the new terminal could only start after the land was acquired, there was urgent need to do so immediately, Vijaykumar said.

The speaker pointed out that developing the airport was not the sole responsibility of the state government. He said that the Thiruvananthapuram airport should rightfully get one-fifth of the fund set aside for the development of international airports throughout the country.

The meeting decided to petition the higher authorities to ending the discrimination against the Thiruvananthapuram international airport. The people's representatives from the state capital will meet President K R Narayanan, scheduled to visit Thiruvananthapuram next week, and draw his attention to the crisis situation existing in developing the international airport.