The construction of the runway at the upcoming Kannur airport will begin in 2012 and flight operations are expected to commence by 2014, according to the Minister for Ports, Excise and Airports, Mr. K. Babu.

He said here on Friday that the Kerala Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation (Kinfra) would shortly hand over the land already acquired to the Kannur International Airport Ltd (KIAL) after getting the approval from the Ministries of Finance and Law. In the second phase, Kinfra would acquire 782 acres of land for KIAL. The Minister said that the construction activities in the land already in possession would get going on obtaining environmental clearance from Centre for Earth and Science Studies (CESS). A detailed project report also had to be submitted to the Union Government for completing the formalities, he added.

Land acquisition

Mr Babu said the State Government would take all the possible measures to speed up the acquisition of additional land required for further development of Kozhikode International Airport. He regretted that the high-level committee constituted by the State Government for looking into the process could not do anything concrete even after two months of its formation.

The Government would soon convene a meeting of the State ministers concerned, Members of Parliament, Civil Aviation officials and Airport Action Committee members in Thiruvananthapuram, to discuss the matter and review all the steps taken so far to acquire around 137 acres of land in the airport area.

The Minister noted that the State Government was well aware of the security concerns expressed by the Airports Authority of India about the landing of jumbo aircraft in the airport, which is termed as a ‘table top' aerodrome. The Government would not delay any follow-up action on the matter, he assured.

Hydraulic Survey section

Earlier, laying the foundation stone for the office of Hydraulic Survey section at Beypore port, the Minister said the development of the port has been entrusted with Infrastructures Kerala Ltd. (Inkel) and the development of 10 other small ports in the State would be showcased at the ‘Emerging Kerala' investors meet in April next year for identifying partners.

Vizhinjam port

The environment study for the proposed Vizhinjam port had already begun, he said and added that two companies had responded to the global tender floated for the appointment of a port operator.

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