The construction of the greenfield road to the Kannur airport site is likely to be delayed further with the authorities deciding to postpone the survey for the road in the wake of the agitation launched by the local people.
According to officials sources, the survey will be resumed only after a detailed discussion with the representatives of the local action committee and the Anjarakkandy panchayat authorities. The officials were forced to put off the survey as the local people were steadfastly resisting the move to go ahead with the survey. More than 300 people including women had courted arrest as part of the stir.
The local people including women and children were in the forefront of the agitation right from the beginning of the survey. A meeting convened by the authorities at the initiative of Excise Minister K Babu, who is in charge of the Kannur airport project, at the Collectorate here last week had decided to go ahead with the survey. The assurance given to the people at the conference was that the entire survey and the construction of the road would be done taking the people into confidence.
Obviously, the authorities could not dispel the apprehensions of the people over the number of families likely to be displaced for the construction of the road or the land acquisition for the purpose.
A proposal made by the people was that instead of building a new road, the existing Mele Chovva-Mattanur road and Kappad-Anjarakkandy road could be developed for the purpose of providing road facilities to the airport site. But, going by the decision taken by the authorities, the development of the existing roads would not be enough to meet the requirements of the airport.