Sri Lanka shifts site of planned second international airport

Sri Lanka's ports and aviation ministry has stopped work on a controversial new international airport in the island's south and decided to shift it to a new location.
A ports and aviation ministry statement said the decision was taken after protests from farmers in the original site in Weerawila, in the Hambantota district, and owing to numerous environmental problems.
Weerawila airport cochin site:avindia.blogspot.com
Ports and aviation minister Chamal Rajapaksa has asked the airports and aviation services authority to make arrangements to shift the planned second international airport to a new site in Mattala in the same district.
Plans to build the airport in Weerawila drew protests from farmers as well as environmentalists who said it was too close to the Bundala bird sanctuary on the south coast.
The government had already laid the foundation stone for the new airport even before the environmental feasibility study was completed.
The ports and aviation ministry said the decision to shift the site was taken after Rajapaksa met farmers in the area recently.
Building the airport at the original site in Weerawila would have prevented cultivation in paddy fields and other lands in area, it said.
The proposed new airport has attracted interest from India's Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL).
CIAL earlier this year had talks with Rajapaksa, who is the brother of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, whose political constituency is Hambantota.
28/07/08 Lanka Business Online, Sri Lanka

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Categories: Airports Jul 2008, Foreign Jul 2008, New Jul 2008