Hundreds of families living along the Calicut International Airport in Karipur are upset over the Airports Authority of India’s (AAI) denial of No Objection Certificate (NOC) for construction activities.
A NOC from AAI is mandatory for any construction within the specified limits of the airport. 90% of the area under Kondoti Municipality comes under the red-zone category, which requires the permission of AAI for any building construction.
People living in the eastern side of the airport are particularly affected, where the table-top runway ends and where an Air India Express 737-800 flight overtakes the runway and reaches 35 feet on the night of August 7, 2020. falls into the depths of. 21 people, including the pilots, were killed and several passengers were injured.
“Any application for construction in Palakkaparambu area of Ward 30 is rejected on the ground that the area is proposed for runway extension. This is gross injustice to those who came running to save the victims of the flight accident, taking all the COVID-19 precautions,” said city councilor KP Firos, representing the area.
Municipal officials also said that it was unjust to deny NOC for building construction even before any notification was issued by the government or AAI. However, AAI officials said that they are issuing NOC through proper channel.
Another problem faced by the residents of Kondotti Municipality and Pallikal Gram Panchayat is the process of applying for permission of AAI. AAI has made it mandatory that the NOC application has to be done through a registered surveyor. And, such surveyors are charging ₹10,000 or more from an applicant on the grounds that they are using high-cost high-accuracy equipment to locate the four terrestrial coordinates for each application.
Though AAI’s permission for construction was made mandatory long back, people used to ignore it. However, a late vigilance check compelled the municipal authorities to invoke the NOC rule.
AAI is planning to acquire 12 acres from Kondotti Municipality and six acres from Pallikal Panchayat for extension of the runway. After the August 7, 2020 accident, the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) insisted that the Runway End Safety Area (RESA) should be increased at both ends of the runway. A bigger RESA could have prevented the fatal Air India Express accident, it was reported.
When RESA was extended by taking out from both ends of the runway, the runway was shortened, prompting the authorities to ban the operation of wide-bodied aircraft.