Legal hurdles block new Bangalore airport

Bangalore: The new Bangalore international airport will probably be ready before time (scheduled for completion in April next year), but the modern access road to it will not, recreating the image of a journey done partly by bullock cart and partly by jet aircraft.
As things stand, travellers will take around two hours to reach the airport, which is 35 km away from the city centre, for at least a year after it starts functioning.
This is because of legal hurdles the government is facing in acquiring land for a 21-km dedicated expressway to the airport.
The government is fighting at least 40 different cases related to land acquisition.
To cut the journey time and derive full benefit from the state-of-the-art airport, the government decided to build six-lane toll expressway. The optimum alignment was worked out with the help of satellite imagery and a preliminary notification was issued on March 3 for land acquisition.
Residents of Bagalur, Bhairathi, Chikka Gubbi, Dodda Gubbi, private residential township developers and farmers filed cases in various courts seeking a change in the expressway alignment or denotification of their lands from acquisition.
Government sources said many powerful politicians also owned land along the alignment of the road and wanted it changed.
22/08/07 Aravind Gowda/Business Standard

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Categories: Airports Aug 2007, New Aug 2007