Kannur airport work to start as hurdles cleared

By Ashraf Padanna/ThiruvananthapuramKerala’s fourth and largest international airport coming up near the northern city of Kannur at a cost of Rs1.7bn cleared its last hurdle yesterday with the federal government granting the green clearance to the greenfield airport. “The central government yesterday gave environmental clearance for the Kannur airport construction,” Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, who is also chairman of the airport company, said after talks with federal Environment Minister Jayanti Natarajan in New Delhi.“With this, all clearances are in place and we can start work straight away,” Chandy said.A large number of non-resident Keralites from Kannur, Kasargode and northern parts of Wayanad currently depend on small federally-administered airports with tabletop runways at Kozhikode and Mangalore, in neighbouring Karnataka.The Kannur International Airport Ltd (KIAL), in which the state government and its agencies hold 26% stake, has completed all formalities for floating global tenders for awarding the construction contract and hopes the first flight take off in 2015.Kerala minister for ports and airports, K Babu, said construction would start in September and will be completed in a timely manner. The land required for the runway and passenger terminals is already in  KIAL’s possession (1,278 acres) and another 732 acres is being acquired.KIAL has shortlisted seven companies - GMR Infrastructure, Sanjoy Gammons, Larson and Toubro, TAV-Essar, EKO-Unity, OJSC Sibmost-Gayatri and ITD Cementation India- for awarding engineering, procurement and construction contracts.When completed, the Kannur airport would be the fourth international airport in the state after Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode. Another intentional airport is coming up in the central Kerala town of Aranmula, in which the state will hold a 10% stake. Babu pointed out that there would the project  is unlikely to face a funds crunch as the 51% shares allotted to the government and the entities it has a control or influence on are already fully subscribed.The shares offered to the public in small lots will, however, take time to complete subscription since public issue is not allowed.“We have so far received 2,500 applications, mostly from NRKs, and the share certificates are being issued,” said Babu, who is also one of the directors of both the KIAL and CIAL. “We are not issuing bulk shares to individuals now,” the minister told Gulf Times. BJP unveils election teams to be headed by ModiIANS/New DelhiThe BJP yesterday announced its election campaign team for the 2014 polls under Narendra Modi’s stewardship with a 11-member central election campaign committee under him.The announcement was a clear signal of the Gujarat chief minister’s possible projection as prime ministerial candidate. The central election campaign committee is to include Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and three chief ministers. The party also formed 20 sub-committees, under the central election campaign committee, to work on a host of tasks including reaching out to new and young voters and preparing manifesto for the next Lok Sabha polls. The announcement of members of national campaign committee for 2014 Lok Sabha polls came over a month after Modi was appointed its chief at the party’s conclave in Goa.The committee will work under guidance of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, senior party leader Lal Krishna Advani and party president Rajnath Singh.Making the announcement, Bharatiya Janata Party general secretary Ananth Kumar said that former party presidents Murli Manohar Joshi, Venkaiah Naidu and Nitin Gadkari will also be members of the national central campaign committee.Its other members include general secretaries Ananth Kumar, Thawar Chand Gehlot and Ram Lal and three chief ministers - Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Raman Singh and Manohar Parrikar.The presence of Sushma Swaraj in the panel is being considered significant as she is seen as possible prime ministerial candidates and there were apprehensions about her agreeing to work under Modi.Jaitley, too, is considered a possible prime ministerial candidate.Advani does not have any functional responsibility and will be guiding the panel. The BJP yesterday also signalled its intentions to be “in election mode” for the Lok Sabha polls by forming panels on key aspects related to the election.The manifesto committee will be headed by Murli Manohar Joshi. Gadkari will head the panel to prepare vision document. Sushma Swaraj and Jaitley will together head the publicity committee which also has party general secretary Amit Shah as its member. The panel to formulate a charge-sheet against the United Progressive Alliance government will be headed by Gopinath Munde and Ravi Shankar Prasad, the party’s deputy leaders in the parliament.The committee on rallies will be headed by Ananth Kumar and on parliamentary seat conferences by Thawar Chand Gehlot. The party also formed a panel to reach out to sections such as farmers and artisans which will be headed by party general secretary Murlidhar Rao.