Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore   

Drop plans for land acquisition: farmers

Coimbatore: The Chinniyampalayam Area Farmers’ Right to Live Movement has appealed to the State and Central Governments to drop the plans for acquisition of lands in and around the city for the airport expansion.

The movement, in a memorandum, pointed out that they were given to understand through media reports that there was a move to drop the plans for acquiring residential lands and go ahead with acquiring agricultural lands.

The farmers pointed out that they had never looked at their farm lands with a commercial motive.

The lands were fertile in nature even during extensive drought conditions because of the groundwater resources. The farm and other allied activities had contributed substantially for generating direct and indirect employment.

The acquisition of these lands for the airport expansion would affect the livelihood of hundreds of people.

Reports about acquisition had caused enough of unrest and anxiety among the people, they pointed out.

Hence, the farmers suggested that the Government could consider acquisition of waste lands along the National Highway i.e., 30 km from Coimbatore City and pointed out that new airports, expansion and modernisation of existing airports in cities such as Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad were happening only outside the city.

A 16-member joint struggle committee had been formed under the leadership of V.C. Jayapaul and P. Jagannathan made the secretary.

The committee at its recent meeting had resolved to prepare a report on the setbacks and implications that would arise out of the land acquisition. The report would be sent to all political party leaders and media houses to generate the required awareness.

By mobilising the support of political parties, the struggle committee had decided to seek the visit of the assembly panel to assess the situation and the genuineness of the demand.

The committee had also proposed to go as a delegation to meet the Chief Minister, M. Karunanidhi, to apprise him of the situation.

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