On a hot summer day in May, the dimly lit shed in Rajendran’s two-room house reverberates with the clattering of the powerloom that he is cautiously watching over. As his burly hands pick away delicately at the stray golden lint, the razor-sharp needles of the machine swallow up row after row of neatly lined threads. Gradually, the coil of yarn bunched atop the loom transforms into a soft, red silk saree.
Rajendran is one of 500 weavers in the Omalur taluk who stand to lose everything if the airport in Salem district, Tamil Nadu, is expanded any further. The airport, located in the Kamalapuram village, borders 570 acres of fertile agricultural land that the state government is now hoping to acquire.
The people of the four villages that are affected by the proposed takeover – Sikkanampatti, Thumbipadi, Pottiyapuram and Kamalapuram – are now engaged in a fight for survival with the government. Even as they have been slapped with one notice after another on the expansion, the villagers are bearing the daily legal, physical and emotional costs of an excruciating struggle for their right over their own land.
The existing airport in the ‘Steel City’ was closed on account of poor patronage. Between its construction in 1993 to as late as 2018, the fully functional airport was lying in disuse for over two decades. Land for the existing airport was initially acquired in 1989 from the parents and grandparents of those protesting its expansion today.
Upon its construction in 1993, the airport operated for three months between April and June, before it was shut. The residents were dissatisfied with the private airliner that flew two-and-a-half hours to Chennai via Coimbatore, while a morning train from the city would promptly drop them off at Chennai in five hours, at well less than the Rs 1,350 being charged by the airline.
18/06/18 Manasa Rao/News Minute
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Rajendran is one of 500 weavers in the Omalur taluk who stand to lose everything if the airport in Salem district, Tamil Nadu, is expanded any further. The airport, located in the Kamalapuram village, borders 570 acres of fertile agricultural land that the state government is now hoping to acquire.
The people of the four villages that are affected by the proposed takeover – Sikkanampatti, Thumbipadi, Pottiyapuram and Kamalapuram – are now engaged in a fight for survival with the government. Even as they have been slapped with one notice after another on the expansion, the villagers are bearing the daily legal, physical and emotional costs of an excruciating struggle for their right over their own land.
The existing airport in the ‘Steel City’ was closed on account of poor patronage. Between its construction in 1993 to as late as 2018, the fully functional airport was lying in disuse for over two decades. Land for the existing airport was initially acquired in 1989 from the parents and grandparents of those protesting its expansion today.
Upon its construction in 1993, the airport operated for three months between April and June, before it was shut. The residents were dissatisfied with the private airliner that flew two-and-a-half hours to Chennai via Coimbatore, while a morning train from the city would promptly drop them off at Chennai in five hours, at well less than the Rs 1,350 being charged by the airline.
18/06/18 Manasa Rao/News Minute
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