NEW DELHI: Villagers in Tamil Nadu’s Chinna Udaippa village launched a protest against the acquisition of land for Madurai airport expansion. Over 1,000 police personnel have been deployed to ensure law and order situation in the area.
Protesters are demanding three cents of land and a house in return for their properties being acquired for the Madurai airport expansion project. The Madurai airport, currently spanning 502.25 acres, plans to acquire an additional 633.17 acres. Of this, 543.64 acres have already been handed over for the expansion, according to officials, IANS reported.
Madurai collector MS Sangeetha has granted administrative approval for the acquisition of land to construct an alternative road, which will clear the way for the completion of a compound wall around the newly acquired airport land. So far, the airport has built a 12.36 km compound wall on the expanded land.
Despite the Madurai airport receiving a new terminal in 2010 and now operating international flights to destinations like Singapore, Dubai, and Colombo, it still lacks international status. The airport handled 1.4 million passengers in 2023-24, and achieved 24×7 operations starting October 1.