Chennai Parandur Airport: Massive Protest Against Project By 13 Local Villages Enters 200th Day, Poovulagin Nanbargal Activist Taken To Custody

Advocate Vetriselvan , an activist belonging to the environmental group 'Poovulagin Nanbargal', was taken in to preventive custody by Kancheepuram police while he was on the way to Ekanapuram, a village near Parandur where farmers have been protesting against the proposed greenfield airport for Chennai city.

Over 1500 people including residents from 13 nearby villages and environmental activists have been protesting against the airport project for 200 days at Ambedkar ground at Eganapuram village.

G. Sundarrajan of Poovulagin Nanbargal condemned the arrest of Vetriselvan and termed it as a 'failure of democracy'.

“Every individual has the right to protest and show solidarity with someone who is protesting for a cause. It is unconstitutional and against democratic principles that the police have stopped Mr. Vetriselvan. We have seen various struggles and protests over the last 15 years but we have never been barred from entering a place,” he added.

The arrest of the environmental activist also evoked condemnation from T Velmurugan, MLA of Panruti and founder of Thamizhaga Vazhvurimai Katchi, condemned the detention of Vetriselvan. He called it "anti-democratic.” 

Residents of 13 villages near Parandur including  Nelvai, Nagapattu, Meleri, Gunagarambakkam, Ekanapuram and Mahadevimangalam, are opposed to the project contending that it adversely affect their livilehood.

In August 2022, Chief Minister M K Stalin announced that a greenfield airport would be built on 4,971 acres in Parandur, located around 15 km northeast of Kanchipuram, at an investment of Rs 20,000 crore with a capacity to handle 100 million passengers per annum. It is expected that the project would be completed in 2028.

Villagers and environmental organisations like Poovulagin Nanbargal are against the project. While villagers are worried about the loss of their fertile agricultural land and waterbodies, environmental organisations have said that the project could cause flooding and obstruct the flow of the 43 kilometre-long Kamban canal which fills nearly 85 lakes before emptying into the Sriperumbudur lake.

Activists of Poovulagin Nanbargal maintain that the state government should abandon the plan to develop a greenfield airport in Parandur and instead explore the possibility of turning several airstrips in the state like Arakkonam, Hosur, Neyveli, Cholavaram, Salem, Sulur into new airports as only 20 per cent of airport users were from Chennai and the rest came from other parts of the state.

Recently, the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO) had filed an application for site clearance with the Ministry of Civil Aviation's steering committee.

TIDCO has invited bids from consulting firms to prepare the Detailed Techno-Economic Report (DTER) for the proposed Parandur airport. 

A high-level technical committee is also expected to soon look into the concerns of the Parandur inhabitants and environmental experts over the relocation of the residents, the presence of water bodies on this site, and the potential of flooding.

The committee is expected to recommend measures in order to eliminate water shortages in communities near Parandur and to prevent floods during rainy seasons.

Some of the ideas proposed by supporters of the project include connecting the water bodies to each other to ensure proper flow and retaining the 360-acre Periya Nelavoy lake.