Coimbatore: The government order on releasing fund to acquire land for expansion of the Coimbatore airport is expected within a month, said the district revenue officer in charge of
land acquisition, P Chidambaram. “We will get the fund once the GO is issued. Almost 90% of the land owners had submitted letters agreeing to handover their lands for acquisition almost five months ago. But the process had not moved forward since then,” he told TOI.
The GO is getting delayed as it has to pass through departments like revenue, transport and finance, said Chidambaram. “We are awaiting the arrival of funds to take the land acquisition process forward. While the process of preparing documents and identifying ownership of the lands is on, we will need the fund to start registering the lands,” he added.
Some landowners, who had agreed to allow their lands to be acquired, had expressed worry after they received no word from the government. They met some officials at the collectorate last week to enquire about the acquisition. “The officials said that Chennai was not sanctioning the price agreed and funds were yet to be allocated. We had agreed to their price hoping that the acquisition process will be completed fast,” a landowner said.
Almost 627 acres of land is being acquired for the expansion of the airport. About 466 acres must be acquired from private land owners. The government had fixed Rs 900/sqft for agricultural land and Rs 1,500/sqft for residential land. This is the highest compensation offered for agricultural land in Tamil Nadu.
Those who have agreed to allow their lands to be acquired are agriculturists, who own coconut farms or have kept their landholdings barren.
Once the land is acquired, one of the first works likely to be taken up by the Airports Authority of India is to expand the existing runway from 9,500 feet to 12,500 feet so it can accommodate wide-bodied aircraft. They also plan to construct a new terminal building and parking bays to accommodate the growing traffic to the airport.
