On Wednesday, the debate over a planned airport project at the Doloo tea plantation in Assam’s Cachar region took a new turn.
In a letter to Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Sushmita Dev, Union Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said that the Ministry has not requested to build an airport in the area.
The Civil Aviation Ministry has already indicated the same in an RTI response.
The Doloo tea plantation has been the subject of debate for more than a month when the Assam state government asked the tea garden’s owner to purchase 1,500 acres of property to build an airport there.
When the district government used bulldozers to remove the tea plantation to acquire the property for the projected airport on May 12, demonstrations occurred in the Lalbagh division of the Doloo tea estate.
READ MORE: Amid JP Nadda’s Visit, Bengal BJP Infighting Comes To Light
Hundreds of tea garden employees raced to the spot, although mass gatherings were prohibited in the region. Workers in the garden chanted slogans against the demolition of the plantation. As a goodwill gesture, the state cabinet recently authorized a payout of Rs 1 lakh for each of the 1,263 tea garden employees.
In response to Ms Dev’s letter, Union Aviation Minister Scindia said that the Centre had created a policy in 2008 that required any airport developer or state government interested in establishing an airport to submit a proposal to the Ministry.
Mr Scindia said that the Ministry has yet to receive a proposal to build a new airport in the Cachar area.
Ms Dev had questioned Mr Scindia on the approval of an international airport in the Cachar area. She had also requested a project timeframe, assuming that the Ministry had already approved it.
The Doloo tea estate has a total of 9,965 hectares. The tea garden employs around 1,900 people. To make place for the ‘proposed’ airport, roughly 3 million tea plants in 21 tea garden areas will be removed.
The tea garden employees have been outspoken in their opposition to the purchase, which they believe would result in the loss of their jobs. Because the tea garden is their sole source of income, they have demanded that the airport be constructed somewhere else.
