Eganapuram: Protest against new airport for 365 days

CHENNAI: The continuous protest against the proposed second airport for Chennai in 13 villages around Parandur in Kanchipuram district completed one year on Tuesday when the founder of Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK), T T V Dinakaran joined the agitating villagers on the 365th day at Eganapuram and pledging his support to them, blaming former Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami for identifying the place for the new aviation project.

It would not augur well for Chief Minister M K Stalin to insist on the airport project coming up at the same location in Parandur as it would destroy 4,750 acres of agricultural land spread over the 13 villages, he said, urging the government to find an alternative location taking into consideration the sentiments and livelihood of the people.

Over the past year when protests were held every day, mostly at night hours after work, several political leaders had come over to express solidarity with the protesting villagers, who on Sunday took the issue to the local goddess of the Amman temple in Eganapuram where an Aadi festival was being organised.

Among the illumination serial lights that lit up the village as part for the festival of the Ellaiamman temple was an image of an aircraft (a helicopter) with a ‘X’ sign on it, symbolizing the cancellation of the airport project, drawing the attention of the people and reminding them of their need to fight non-stop to save their land and livelihood.

The same image of a helicopter with a cancellation mark was drawn on a blackboard, along with another drawing of plants symbolizing agriculture and the slogan ‘we want agriculture, we don’t want airport’ written on it was put up on the road to mark the 365th day of the protest by the federation of residents of Eganapuram and farmers on Tuesday.

Since the agitation marking the 365th day drew crowds from all the villages, the situation was tense, leading to the police deploying more pickets.

The announcement on the selection of the Parnadur site for the construction of the airport was made by the Union Government exactly a year ago, triggering the public protest in which entire villages, particularly women, sat on dharna and raised slogans.

Several attempts by the State government, which deputed many leaders to convince the villagers of the need for an airport and development with promises of three times compensation for the land lost, did not yield results.

However, the villagers did not escalate the protests beyond a point as the government had not moved on to the next step to initiate the process of land acquisition. But when an expert team from IIT Madras recently arrived for a survey, they tried to stop them from entering the villages and some people even courted arrest.

The villages that would be lost if the new Greenfield airport, envisaged as the second airport for Chennai, comes up are Parundur, Valathur, Tandalam, Nelvai, Melpodavur and Madapuram in Kanchipuram taluk and Edayarpakkam, Kunarampakkam, Mahadevi Mangalam, Egnapuram and Singalpadi in Sriperumbudur taluk.