MALAPPURAM
Minister for Sports V. Abdurahiman said here on Tuesday that those surrendering land for the Karipur airport runway expansion would be given compensation even before the acquisition of the land.
He said that the package the government used for national highway land acquisition would be followed for the airport land acquisition also. “We will start the acquisition process only after convincing the people,” he said.
The Minister said that the environmental impact study would be held even before acquiring the land. He was addressing a meeting on Karipur land acquisition held at the collectorate here on Monday.
Mr. Abdurahiman said that 18.5 acre of land suggested by a high level technical committee would be acquired soon. The committee had suggested that the runway should be expanded on both sides by acquiring 18.5 acre for the wide-body flights to land.
While 11 acre has to be acquired on one side, 7.5 acre is needed on the other. Mr. Abdurahiman said that the State government was doing its best to retain the international status of the Karipur airport.
He said that Haj embarkation point could be retained at Karipur only if the airport expansion was done fast. He said people’s representatives had expressed their support to the land acquisition move at Karipur.
