The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Residents stage hunger strike against airport expansion

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Monday, Jan 14, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Residents stage hunger strike against airport expansion

Special Correspondent

Claim land acquisition will affect not less than 5,000 people

— PHOTO: A. MURALITHARAN

IN PROTEST: UPFFS members at the day-long hunger strike near the Tambaram Taluk office on Sunday.

TAMBARAM: Members of the United People’s Forum For Survival (UPFFS), an association of people living at Manapakkam, Kolapakkam, Gerugambakkam, Thaarapakkam and Kovur villages, staged a day-long hunger strike near the Tambaram Taluk office on Sunday, to protest against the proposal to acquire land for the Chennai airport expansion project.

The protestors said it was planned to acquire vast areas of developed land and also re-route a portion of the Adyar river, for the airport expansion project, the most important component of which was laying a new runway.

They said re-routing the river and building an elevated runway across it would cause severe hardships to residents of these villages and several others.

If the government went ahead with these works, an estimated five lakh people would be affected by flooding.

Land acquisition would affect not less than 5,000 people, Forum members told reporters. A permanent solution to the problem was developing a greenfield airport well outside city limits.

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