MoEF urged to cancel clearance for airport project

Pathanamthitta: The Pampa Parirakshana Samiti (PPS), a Kozhencherry-based prominent environmental group that has been campaigning for the cause of Pampa since the past two decades, have called upon the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) to take immediate steps to cancel the clearance granted for the proposed greenfield airport project at Aranmula.
In a letter to the secretary, MoEF, the PPS general secretary, N.K. Sukumaran Nair, alleged that the clearance granted by the Environmental Appraisal Committee (F No. 10-51/2010-IA) for the KGS Aranmula Greenfield Airport project was based on certain “undisclosed and incorrect information, without considering the ground reality.’’
The eco group say that the project area is a “wetland and a riparian floodplain area of river Pampa and a fragile eco system.’’
According to Mr Nair, the proposed project site is a paddy land and it require conversion of as much as 347.556 acre of paddy fields for the airport project which was not at all mentioned in the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) report submitted to the MoEF. Conversion and reclamation of wetlands for non-wetland use should be prohibited as per the prevailing rules, he said.
The letter further states that the small stream mentioned in the EIA report is the origin of Kozhithode stream, a tributary of river Pampa that empties out into the Pampa at Edayaranmula. This stream is a major water source for the agricultural lands in Aranmula, Kidangannoor and Mallappuzhasserry villages and for the people residing in the surrounding villages.
19/02/12 Radhakrishnan Kuttoor/The Hindu

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Categories: airports Feb 2012, New Feb 2012