Civic body seeks airport dues

Calcutta: The Rajarhat–Gopalpur municipality has asked the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to clear dues to the tune of Rs 3.36 crore.
“For 14 years, the AAI authorities at the airport have not paid any service charge to us. We raised the issue several times during our review meetings but they are just not paying up,” said Tapas Chatterjee, the chairman of the municipality.
According to him, the municipality supplies drinking water to the airport, clears the garbage, maintains the sewage lines and looks after the street lights outside the premises.
For these services, the civic body has been charging the AAI Rs 8 lakh since 1994. Before that, the airport was under Rajarhat-Gopalpur panchayat, which later became an urban civic body.
“Though they have not paid us for so long, we have never stopped the civic services as it is an international airport,” said Chatterjee.
According to him, the issue of outstanding service charges cropped up during a recent review meeting between officials of the AAI and civic body on sewage problems in the airport.
14/07/08 Soumen Bhattcharjee/The Telegraph

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Categories: Airports Jul 2008