Chennai's Proposed Parandhur Greenfield Airport Will Cause Water Shortage: Activists

New Delhi: The hydrological balance of water-scarce Chennai is threatened by the Rs 20,000 crore proposed Parandhur greenfield airport as hundreds of waterbodies near the metropolitan city will be obliterated for the project. More than half of the area earmarked for the project – at a distance of roughly 70 km from the MGR central railway station of Chennai – comprises wetlands which, activists and experts say, help sustain the groundwater level of the region.

The ruling Dravida Munetra Kazhagam (DMK) government of Tamil Nadu led by chief minister MK Stalin has given its nod to the project site, proposed in Kancheepuram and Sriperumbudur districts, within the municipal limits of Greater Chennai Corporation, even though it would need large-scale diversion of wetlands. An acute drinking water shortage in Chennai due to the drying up of reservoirs gripped the city in June 2019, drawing international attention.

Of the 1,847.60 hectares of land identified for the project, wetlands account for nearly 990.60 hectares comprising lakes, ponds, aquifers and other small water bodies. The project will also allegedly result in the complete obliteration of the Kamban Canal that flows through the project site area feeding water into as many as 85 small lakes before emptying into the Sriperumbudur Lake. This canal also helps irrigate thousands of hectares of agricultural land.

"Given the water scarcity of Chennai, whose population keeps growing every year, the government should have been planning to harness and utilise the rich natural water resources near the city where the project has been planned. Further, a large portion of land earmarked for the project is also under multi-cropped cultivation, which helps in percolation of rainwater, thereby again maintaining underground water tables," Vetri Selvan, an activist of a Chennai-based environmental organisation, Poovulagin Nanbargal, told Newsclick.

Recent estimates peg the population of Chennai at around 63 lakhs while that of the Greater Chennai area at 1.18 crore. On average, residents of Chennai get around half of the water supply mandated at 135 litres/capita/day by the World Health Organisation.

The number of water bodies in Chennai has dwindled severely in the past 100 years. As per reports, the expanse of water bodies shrank from 12.6 sqkm in 1893 to just over 3.2 sqkm in 2017. Largescale urban construction activities have reportedly reduced the number of large water bodies in the city from 60 to just 28. A major portion of the potable water needs of the city is met by private tankers. To meet the potable water needs of the city, the government has established two desalination plants in Chennai – at Nemmeli and Minjur – with a total installed capacity of treating 200 million litres of seawater from the Bay of Bengal.

Local communities from the 13 villages that will be affected by the project have been on an indefinite protest in Parandhur for almost a year now against the proposed takeover of agricultural land and water bodies. At least two of these 13 villages will be obliterated from the map of Tamil Nadu if the state government goes ahead with the project in Parandhur. 

In December last year, a group of ministers of the state government led by senior DMK leader Thangam Thennarasu, who is also the industries minister of Tamil Nadu, promised local communities in a meeting that a high-level expert committee would be appointed to study as to how the airport project can go ahead in Parandhur without disturbing the hydrological balance of the region. In May, the state government reportedly asked its water resources department to provide data and information for the aforementioned study.

Further, the proposed project site comprises 323.72 hectares of agricultural land under multi-cropped cultivation. These lands are irrigated by local water bodies that will be taken over the project, as well as several manmade water canals constructed in the region in pre-colonial times. Millets and paddy grown on these agricultural lands help provide food security to local communities and contribute to their financial well-being.

"The proposed takeover of multi-cropped agricultural land for the project, when the government can scout for other sites, defies all logic. It will violate land acquisition rules that allow the takeover of multi-cropped land only as a last resort. It will also result in a loss of livelihood for a large population. Alternate sources of employment for the section of farmers who will lose their agricultural land can never be generated from an airport project," added Selvan.

In order to safeguard food security, the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 – known popularly as the LARR Act – -discourages the takeover of multi-cropped irrigated land. As per the provisions of the Act, the land falling under this category can be acquired only under "exceptional circumstances, as a demonstrable last resort" (See Chapter 3, Section 10).

Though the site is yet to get clearance from the Airports Authority of India, the ruling state government has made its intention to go ahead with the airport in Parandhur with Stalin and Thennarasu laying down statements in the Tamil Nadu legislative assembly about the necessity of the airport at the particular site. Stalin has said that the airport, which will have the capacity to handle approximately 10 crore passengers/year and thereby augment the load handled by the existing airport in Meenambakkam, will help Tamil Nadu achieve its goal of attaining an economy of 1 trillion USD by transforming Chennai into the best destination for investors in Asia.

The project will be undertaken as per the Greenfield Airport Policy, 2008 of the Central government, in which Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation has been appointed as the public sector equity partner. A private sector entity is yet to be appointed for the public-private partnership project.

"It seems the government is bent upon fulfilling the interests of the private sector entity that it may have decided upon for selecting as its partner for the project. So far, the government's attitude in dealing with the project-affected communities has been only over the rate of compensation against land and houses that will be acquired. The government seems willing to pay whatever is necessary to the project-affected communities to get lost from the region. But it is not inclined towards entering into a meaningful dialogue with us," said Subramani, a project-affected villager of Eganapuram, one of the villages facing complete obliteration.

Activists allege that the police have not been allowing outsiders to enter the Parandhur area, where the indefinite protest is underway, or meet the families that are set to be affected by the project. The local police have set up police check posts and deployed forces to ward off any breakdown in law and order in the region. 

The high-handedness of police authorities came to the fore in February when Selvan was arrested by Kancheepuram police while he was on his way to participate in a public meeting of project-affected villages on the 200th day of the indefinite protest. He was later released on bail. In September last year, Kancheepuram police arrested noted farmer leader PR Pandian while he was going to meet the protestors. 

Pandian, the president of the Tamil Nadu Federation of All Farmers' Associations, was also later released on bail. Earlier that month, a group of sitting MLAs and MPs belonging to the DMK had, however, been allowed to meet project-affected villagers with offers of compensation for the loss of their land, houses and livelihoods.

Speaking to Newsclick, however, Kancheepuram Superintendent of Police M Sudhakar denied allegations that any bar had been imposed preventing entry of outsiders into Parandhur.

"There is no access control at all to Parandhur. Whatever steps have been taken in the past have been done to maintain law and order. It is projected that a massive resistance movement is underway in Parandhur. But this is nowhere close to the truth," said Sudhakar.