Intl airport work gains speed

Intl airport work gains speed
Deccan Herald

Ground work on the BIAL Airport site in Devanahalli gains pace as rehabilitation of villagers nears completion.

As work at the Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL) site at Devanahalli progresses, the infrastructure administrators are in the final stage of clearing space for the ground work, which is to start in full swing. Rehabilitation of the villagers belonging to surrounding areas is almost complete. “Four or five families want to stay back, but we’ll convince them,” said Mr Vinay Kumar, Principal Secretary to Government, Infrastructure Development Department.

A total of 153 families have already been shifted to a rehabilitation site. In a drive, which was initiated in early 2002, the families have been compensated with sites, in addition to the value of the land they owned in the village. “Owners of agricultural lands have been compensated with 50x80 sites while owners of small houses were given 40x60 sites,” said Mr Kumar. The project also has within its purview infrastructure issues of the neighbouring areas. “There was some illegal quarrying happening around the site, which had to be stopped. This is a prestigious project and nobody will be benefitting from initial hassles and delays,” said Mr Kumar.

He said that a review meeting held last week addressed issues which had cropped up in the first two months of work on the site. “There are administrative solutions to some of the problems, but we can’t always deal with such issues in administrative terms,” he added.

He said that the hesitancy of a few families to move out was understandable, though the shift was inevitable. “The people who haven’t moved out are obviously attached to their homes and who likes to be uprooted?,” he asked while adding that people’s representatives had been approached to convince the families. “Both MLA Chandranna and MP H T Sangliana have been very supportive in this regard. As local administrators, their words carry more weigtage,” he said.

The rehabilitation layout is on the National Highway and has 40x60 and 50x80 sites. Many of them were earlier living in their 10x10 homes, he mentioned.

Road less travelled

Another issue, which the review meeting addressed was that of the newly laid road around the site, which is mostly unused. “The earlier district road was cutting the site through the middle and was almost perpendicular to the proposed runway. As an alternative, a tar-topped road was laid around the site, but the people instead of using the new road are still taking the earlier path,” said Mr Kumar. He also said that two km of the four km runway was ready and more work would be initiated.