Chennai: People of 12 villages who might lose their agricultural and other lands for the construction of the new green field airport for Chennai at Parandur in Kanchipuram district were up in arms against the government move, making it clear on Tuesday that they did not want an airport coming at the proposed site as it would rob them of their livelihood.
For a meeting organized at the Kanchipuram district collector’s office on Tuesday, the villagers were asked to send five representatives each to discuss and sort out the issue with three State Ministers A V Velu, Thangam Thennarasu and T M Anbarasan but most of them walked out after over two hours as the Ministers did not turn up.
The 60 odd villagers, who gathered at the scheduled time of 10 am, waited inside the conference hall impatiently and left in protest at around 12 noon after having a heated argument with the officials and police personnel present there over the inordinate delay in starting of the meeting.
They trooped out in groups telling the authorities to visit their villages and hold a public hearing, causing a minor flutter in the venue as they raised slogans against the land acquisition while leaving the premises.
Later when the Ministers arrived at around 12.30 pm a few villagers who had stayed back raised objections to the construction of the airport.
Though the Ministers assured them that their lands would not be taken away, they were not satisfied with the assurance since the Ministers also said that the government was empowered to take over any land for the benefit of the public.
The people said that they would not accept the kind of meeting of five representatives from each village with some Ministers held in some place away from their homes. They wanted a proper public hearing to be held in their villages enabling all the people, particularly elderly women, to participate and express their views.
While the Ministers, who were expected to brief the media about the outcome of the meeting, left in a huff, some villagers spoke to the waiting media persons. One of them, Abarasu of Nelvai village in Kanchipuram taluk said that 10,000 persons lived in the 12 villages and each of them maintained cattle in their land for their livelihood.
He said most of the people were illiterates and had no other means of income other than making use of the land they possessed. He wanted the authorities to seek the opinion of the elderly people in the villages and then take a decision.
The Ministers who came for the meeting with the villagers had assured to convey their views to the Chief Minister, who would take the final decision, he said.
Murmurs against the airport project that started the day after the Union Government announced Parandur as the ideal site for the airport two weeks ago took a solid shape on Independence Day when the people of Eganapuram village passed a resolution against the setting up of the airport at the grama sabha meeting and send it to the district collector.
Today’s incident at the Collector’s office also pointed to the growing public resentment over losing land and livelihood. The incident was also an indicator that the people had started organizing themselves to collectively protest against the government move to take over their land for the ambitious Rs 20,000 crore project.
