The controversy over the setting up of a private airport at Aranmula took a new turn on Friday with the villagers protesting against the notification issued by the Industries department declaring 500 acres of land spread across the Mallappuzhasserry, Kidangannur and Aranmula villages as an industrial area.
The agitated villagers under the aegis of the People’s Action Council laid siege to the office of the KGS Aranmula Greenfield Airport Office on the Kidangannur Road in the morning.
Addressing the protest meeting, the Action council leaders, A. Padmakumar, A.K. Muraleedhara Kurup, Prasad Verumkal and Joji Varghese, alleged that the international airport project itself was part of a big land scam and fraud as the promoter company did not have a single cent of land of its own in Aranmula.
They alleged that the company that claimed to have obtained clearances for setting up an international airport even before purchasing any piece of land for the same was a major case to be seriously probed into.
The protesters demanded the Government to take immediate steps to cancel the notification issued by the Industries department declaring 500 acres of thickly populated areas in the three villages in the larger interests of protecting hundreds of hapless villagers in this part of the State from the ``landgrabbers’’.
Mr Varghese alleged that the KGS Group was a Chennai-based real estate company and they are planning to set up the proposed airport converting the bio-diversity-rich Aranmula wetlands which was a sprawling paddy field two decades ago. As many as 150 acres of the Aranmula paddy fields have already been illegally converted in the name of the airport project and there was no question of permitting any more conversion in the area, he said.
The Action Council leaders said the notification of 500 acres of land as industrial area and setting up of the “Greenfield Airport, Aranmula Single Window Clearance Board’’ by the Industries department on February 24 was part of a hidden agenda to acquire the dwellings of the poor villagers in the name of the airport project.
They said the agitation would continue till the Government take stern action against the illegal land conversion made in the name of the airport project and take steps to cancel the notification issued by the Industries department during the previous Left Democratic Front Government.
People from different parts of the three villages staged protest marches to the KGS office at Aranmula in the afternoon too, protesting against the airport project.
