Mullakkara Ratnakaran, the former Agriculture Minister, has requested the new Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president, V.M. Sudheeran and vice-president, V.D. Satheesan, to impress on the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) government the grave flaws it had committed by blindly supporting a “grossly anti-people and anti-environment” project such as the Aranmula airport.
Mr. Ratnakaran was addressing an indefinite satyagraha staged by the joint action council chaired by poet Sugathakumari, in protest against the project, on Tuesday. A large number of the action council members who belong to different political parties and socio-environmental groups, took part in the satyagraha that has entered the second day.
He said both Mr. Sudheeran and Mr. Satheesan, who have openly supported the ongoing mass movement against the airport project, were bound to convince the government of the ill effects of the project and to abandon it without any further delay.
‘Flawed policy’Had there been a single environmentally literate member on the State Cabinet, the government would not have taken 10 per cent stake in the controversial private airport company, falling easy prey to the trap laid by the land lobby, he alleged. The CPI leader said it was high time the government changed its hitherto flawed policy.
He said Aranmula was one of the few places in the State blessed with natural beauty and rich biodiversity and destruction of the Aranmula Puncha in the name of an anti-people private airport project would only sound its death knell. Conversion of paddy land and wetland at Aranmula would ultimately lead to destruction of the remaining wetlands, paddy lands, and the greenery across the State, alleged Kummanam Rajasekharan, Aranmula Heritage Village Action Council chief patron.
The government could have easily corrected the environmental excesses carried out in the name of airport and revive cultivation in the Aranmula Puncha by spending a small portion of the estimated project cost running into Rs.3,000 crore, he said.
Mr. Ratnakaran said setting up an airport in the Aranmula Puncha would never be possible and hence the government should explore the possibility of setting up the airport, if badly needed, at some other location in the district. He called for a judicial probe into the blatant violation of laws taken place in the name of the project. The government could very well include the circumstances in which the previous LDF had given in-principle approval for the project. V.S. Vijayan, the former chairman of the Kerala State Biodiversity Board; P. Prasad, CPI district secretary; P. Gopalankutty, RSS leader; and K.A. Joseph, CPI-ML, spoke.
