Move your houses, people!! – Plane’s going to land:

Though the government’s decision to expand the Chennai Airport is commendable, the procurement of land from people living in Pammal and Pallavaram for this purpose is very unfair. People whose property is worth 20-30 lakhs will be given a meager amount set by the government as compensation, which would be something like 8 lakhs. And those affected people are the ones who can never dream of using the airport in their life. The fraction of population in Chennai using the airport is very small. If the government is really desperate to develop our nation, then there are lots of wastelands around our city, which they can very well convert into a modern airport. This was what the Japanese government did when they expanded the Tokyo airport. If the airport users feel it is too far, that is a one-time problem and not as severe as losing your property lawfully. In fact, a man sold his cultivable land to the government to expand the airport around the 80’s in return for a promised amount of 8 lakh rupees, but he is yet to receive around 5 lakhs of it. If a city, which has been around for 100 years, wants to develop, it is morally incorrect to demand its inhabitants to give up their property especially when so much of land is freely available. Shouldn’t the same rule, which applied to the proposal of demolishing QMC to build a Secretariat, apply here?