Land acquisition for airport expansion to begin soon

Mangalore, July 14: With the pre-survey work pertaining to land acquisition to extend the runway at Mangalore airport expected to be complete in the next two or three days, a clear picture on the extent of land that needs to be acquired would emerge after that. The Airports Authority of India ( AAI) has indicated the areas adjoining the airport at Kenjar that it needs to extend the runway and this has been tentatively identified to extend to around 150 acres.

Once the survey is complete, the revenue department will issue a preliminary notification indicating the extent of land that needs to be acquired, said Prabhuling Kavalikatti, assistant commissioner, Mangalore sub-division. This process (of issuing preliminary notification) will be taken up within a week, Prabhuling Kavalikatti informed the quarterly review meeting of 20-point Karnataka Development Programme held here on Monday.

The official pointed that the administration would require around Rs 36 crore to acquire the land and an additional Rs 20 crore to rehabilitate the people whose land would be acquired. There are around 50 families in the area proposed for acquisition, he said, adding even a school there needs to be relocated. The rehabilitation would include constructing new houses for the land losers and providing them with basic civic amenities in the new colony.

The state government has set aside Rs 15 crore in the 2011-12 budget for extending the runway, he said adding that the issue of acquiring Dakkan Park building close to the new integrated terminal building at Kenjar is presently with the department of infrastructure. There is no clarity regarding who would bear the cost of acquisition, he said adding there is unanimity of view that acquiring the building is vital from security point of view.

M R Vasudeva, director, Mangalore Airport said providing better connectivity to the airport would certainly help boost the customer satisfaction index which was at 85% as against the target of 95%. This, he said is as per a survey conducted by Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation, which deals with 34 parameters, and 17 of them pertain to issues outside the airport and rest within. We need support of authorities to deal with these external parameters, he said.

On the issue of airport licensing, Vasudeva said there are certain issues pertaining to trees that are nearly 25 feet tall on private land next to runway 24 of the airport. "We have urged the district administration to acquire this land at Adyapady as cutting these trees that are fruit bearing would leave the owners with nothing," he said, adding that the land owners too favoured acquisition. The survey work for this land acquisition too is on, Vasudeva said.