Civil Aviation Ministry gives site clearance for Bhogapuram airport

The airport, which is being fiercely opposed by the locals, has already received necessary clearances from the Defence Ministry.

The stage is all set for the commencement of works on the proposed international airport at Bhogapuram in Vizianagaram District. The airport, according to senior officials, received the Union Civil Aviation Ministry’s site clearance at a meeting held at New Delhi on Monday.
The airport, which is being fiercely opposed by the locals, has already received necessary clearances from the Defence Ministry.
“The project received in principle nod from the Union Government. We will receive a written order in a week,” a senior official who made a power-point presentation on the benefits of the project to the Union Ministry said.
Sheep going grazing at Byreddypalem, one of the panchayats to be acquired for the Green Field International Airport at Bhogapuram, about 40 k.m. from Visakhapatnam city. - Photo: K.R. Deepak
The Government had initially proposed the Bhogapuram aerotropolis comprising the international airport, maintenance, repair and overhaul facility and aviation academy in a sprawling 15,000 acre site. Bhogapuram international airport is one among the three Greenfield airports proposed in the State while similar projects are proposed at Kuppam and Dagadurthi.

There was, however, strong opposition from the locals who received support from the CPI (Marxist) and the YSR Congress Party. The CPI (M) has said that the proposed project would ruin the lives of the locals and that there was no truth in the Government’s claims that the proposed airport would generate huge number of jobs.
YSRC Party president Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy said that his party was strongly opposed to acquisition of 15,000 acres as the proposed airport could be constructed in around 2,000 to 2,500 acres.
The Bhogapuram International Airport Company Limited, the special purpose vehicle formed for expediting the project, had to scale down the area to be acquired from 15,000 acres to 5,000 acres following opposition from the locals for acquisition of fertile lands. “Of the 5,000 acres, more than 1,600 acres is assigned land and it should not be a problem in acquiring the chunk,” a senior official privy to the development told The Hindu.
The SPV would now focus on the remaining 3,400 acres required for the project. Sources said that the balance land required for the project would be taken either through land acquisition or land exchange, not under the land pooling scheme that had been launched for acquiring lands for prestigious projects like the capital region.
Source: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national

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