Sangh Parivar

Development runs deep—but devotion runs deeper.
So an ancient mosque on a tiny patch of 1,200 square feet of land right
next to a runway has forced a redrawing of the entire Rs 2,000-crore
map to upgrade Kolkata airport.

An extra 25,000 square metres has to be acquired,
crores have to be spent on building a detour and several high-rise
buildings have to be compensated because they have to knock off their
top floors in line with the new plan.

The project, cleared yesterday by the Public
Investment Board under the ministry of Finance is all set to go to the
Cabinet—after a very public spat between Civil Aviation Minister Praful
Patel and the Planning Commission over delays—and envisages extension
of the second runway at the Kolkata airport.

The Kolkata airport has two runways: the main
runway, 3,627m, that carries bulk of the air traffic, and a shorter
one, 2,399 m, which is inadequate to service large aircraft, and so
needs to be extended by another 440 m to the north.

But this is exactly where the 117-year old Bankra
mosque — where on an average 30 people offer prayers each day under
tight security — lies, less than 100 feet from the north end of the
shorter runway, Also, the walls of the mosque cannot withstand
vibrations caused by aircraft landing or taking off.

“We have tried to negotiate with the masjid
committee numerous times. We have also tried to give them land outside
the port and offered to create a replica of the masjid elsewhere but to
no avail,” says SPS Bakshi, Director (Projects), Netaji Subhash Chandra
Bose International Airport. Result: the Airports Authority of India has
decided to extend the runway towards the southern side.

“This means we have to lease out more than 25,000
square metres of land to the state government for the diversion,” says
another official of he AAI. The AAI will spend Rs 2 crore and the state
government will provide Rs 3 crore. Also, an existing road, running
from Kaikhali to Narayanpur (Rajarhat) will need to be diverted.

Then there is the issue of a new taxiway that
needs to be constructed joining the northern end of both the runways.
The taxiway needs to be at least 30 m wide to allow for wingspan of
aircraft like A-380. As per the blueprint, the taxiway will intersect
with the barb-wired path leading to the mosque. This poses a security
threat and to circumvent it, a new path leading to the mosque has to be
constructed. This, in all probability, will be a subway and will mean
an extra Rs 20 crore, say officials.

“The authorities are in constant dialogue with
the members of the masjid committee to bring out a viable solution to
the problem. The extension of the runway towards the south will mean
diverting the Kaikhali road and paying compensation to the building
owners whose buildings will now come under height restriction. AAI is
already conducting a survey to mark the buildings,” said Deepankar
Ghosh, leader of the AAI employees union.

Says Abid Ali, a senior influential member of the
committee that runs the mosque, “Thirty years ago the civil aviation
department of India had evicted us from our land and relocated us at
Bankra on the understanding that the mosque will never be demolished.
We cannot let the mosque be destroyed.”

Amitava Nandi, CPM Member of Parliament, Dum Dum,
passes the buck to the Centre. “The mosque is on AAI’s land and the
Centre should speak to the Imam in New Delhi to shift the structure to
a different area. As of now the Centre is not taking any initiative
about this. What can the state do?” he asks.

That’s not all. Aviation regulations have height
restrictions for buildings within 10 km of the runway. The extension of
the runway to the south to keep the mosque intact means that
multi-storeyed buildings that were permitted in the adjacent Rajarhat
area, will now need to lose some of their top floors. “This will
require us to pay compensation amounting to crores, we are working this
out,” said a senior AAI official. A mapping of the area is being done
to identify which structures have to be trimmed accordingly.

In fact, this week, the DCL Housing Development
Company is the first one to receive a notice to construct Ground plus
17 and not Ground plus 19 floors it had got clearance for. A detailed
survey is under way to identify such houses that would have to conform
to the height restrictions.

“We will be extending one runway to 12,000 feet
and the other one to 10,500 feet without touching the mosque. It is
wrong to say that top floors of some buildings will have to go for the
10,500 feet runway expansion, no such thing will happen.

However, we are still negotiating to have the
mosque relocated elsewhere and we will bear the cost of relocation as
we usually do in case of shifting of religious structures. We had also
taken up the issue with the West Bengal CM a couple of months back but
then he had said that his hands were full so the issue could be
addressed at a later stage. So we have not really lost hope on the
issue”, said a senior official from AAI.

http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Kolkata-airport-Map-redrawn-land...