The Opposition allegation that the government has launched paddy cultivation in a private land and not in the site identified for the Aranmula airport project is totally unfounded, Agriculture Minister V.S. Sunil Kumar has said.
The Minister, accompanied by Puncha Special Officer J. Sajeev and other senior officials of the Agriculture Department, was on Friday inspecting the paddy fields of Aranmula Puncha where cultivation was progressing.
“I am standing in the project area of the proposed airport. There is no room for any suspicion for the United Democratic Front MLAs that the government has excluded the project area while reviving cultivation,” he said. Mr. Sunil Kumar said the government earnestly wished the presence of all MLAs in the district for the harvest festival to be held at Aranmula puncha in the next 110 days.
He said the airport project was a closed chapter.
Meanwhile, District Collector R. Girija informed the Minister that the natural stream restoration work at the Aranmula puncha, on the directions of the High Court, was progressing.
Mr. Sunil Kumar said paddy cultivation would be launched in the entire 245 ha of paddy land in the Aranmula Puncha next year. The cultivation had been launched in 56 ha of land in the puncha, this year, he said.
He said the systematic progress of paddy cultivation in Aranmula puncha had prompted many farmers in the surrounding areas to take up farming.
