CHENNAI: Villagers from Ekanapuram have again erupted in protest against the proposed international airport at Parandur near Chennai. Ahead of a pre-bid meeting at Chennai to select consultants for the development of the airport, villagers alleged the State government had failed to pay heed to their concerns and charged that district revenue officials had presented them with ‘fake’ revised plans of the project that appeared to save a portion of the village. TN officials said they were unaware of such revised maps as allegedly shared by the Sriperumbudur tahsildar with the villagers.
TNIE’s attempts to contact the Kancheepuram collector M Aarthi, local revenue officials and the Sriperumbudur tahsildar were in vain. Ekanapuram has been the epicentre of the anti-Parandur airport protests with the agitation nearing 150 days.
Around 1,200 protesters from the village, which has a population of 2,400, started marching towards the Kancheepuram collectorate on Monday morning. Heavy police deployment was witnessed lest people from other villages join in. The situation was defused after district authorities arranged a meeting with key ministers on Tuesday.
Will study be conducted as per the original plan: Villagers
A delegation of 10 villagers will be meeting ministers EV Velu, TM Anbarasan and Thangam Thennarasu to discuss their concerns. Ekanapuram villagers showed TNIE, which visited the village recently, the maps allegedly shared by the local revenue officials. The two maps showed runaways moving further north, partially bypassing the village.
However, Industries secretary S Krishnan said he was not aware of such maps. Krishnan said the Ekanapuram villagers had indeed placed a request to move the runaways slightly northwards during the last ministerial meeting to save some of their lands. “It was a technical matter, which could be decided only in consultation with the Union government.
The villagers made a reasonable request. We have to technically examine it and then determine whether it is possible or not,” he said. Janarthana Govindraj, one of the key protesters from Ekanapuram, said: “We had called-off our initial plan to take out a protest march to the secretariat on October 17, after the Sriperumbadur tahsildar showed us these revised maps.
We were made to believe that the government was seriously making efforts to protect our interests.” SD Kathiresan, who is part of the 10-member delegation meeting the ministers, said: “We will raise the issue during the meeting. We want to know whether the technoeconomic study will be conducted as per the original plan or the revised plan.
The current project site overall is not suited to develop the airport since it’s full of waterbodies and fertile agricultural lands. “The government has called for tenders to select consultants for preparing a detailed techno economic report. The scope of the work includes undertaking environmental impact assessment and social impact studies, besides carrying out market demand assessment and air traffic forecasting.