The controversial Aranmula international airport project of the KGS group, which has been denied environmental clearance by the Chennai bench of the National Green Tribunal, is making yet another attempt to spring back to life.
The Chennai-based KGS Group has given a fresh application to the Ministry of Environment and Forests for environmental clearance. The Kerala Government has given its no-objection certificate to the project, while the Union Civil Aviation Ministry is said to be positive to the idea.
However, the Hindu Aikya Vedi and a host of hardline Hindu organisations, which oppose the airport, have also revived their efforts to get the project stalled.
Kummanam Rajsekharan, Secretary of the Vedi, has, in a flurry of media publicity, left for Delhi to lobby with top BJP and government leaders not to give the sanction to the airport.
The opposition to the airport is mainly based on pleas that it would hurt the sanctity of the Aranmula Parthasarathy Temple and also ruin the heritage status of Aranmula village. Environmental groups also oppose the project as it would damage the ecology of the area.
The prestige of the State unit of the BJP is at stake as it had, during the last Lok Sabha elections, promised that if the BJP came to power in Delhi the airport would not take off. It had won a large number of Hindu votes in the Aranmula segment of the Pathanamthitta Lok Sabha constituency by campaigning against the airport.
The Aranmula airport, nearly 100 km equi-distant from Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram, will be the fifth international airport in Kerala — after Thiruvananthapuram, Kozhikode, Kochi and the soon-to-be completed Kannur airport.