Aridity, pollution help secure land for Aerotropolis at Andal project site

The aridity of the Durgapur-Andal zone, 200km west of Kolkata in the heart of the coal and steel belt, and the pollution in the area caused by a large number of steel, sponge iron, refractory and power units, have made getting land in the area a lot easier for agencies acquiring it.

As locals admit, the perpetual haze over the area had only intensified the low productivity of the land there, so much so that getting compensation to move away appeared to be an attractive option to many landowners.

“the first chief minister of West Bengal, Bidha Chandra Roy, had chosen the Durgapur area, for its aridity when deciding the location of the Durgapur Steel Plant, and this logic holds today as well”, said sources in the state’s industries department.

There was another factor that appeared to induce land owners to part with land there - the threat posed by coal mining in the area.

Coal mining companies usually acquired sub-surface rights and paid compensation if the mining rendered the surface dangerous or unsuitable for use, or for overburden dumping around open cast mines.

The problem here was that compensation paid in such cases was often paltry even though it was in conformity to existing government rules.

Most landowners were keen to sell their land to the aerotropolis developers as they feared their land could end up being taken over by Eastern Coalfields Ltd (ECL), a Coal India subsidiary, for future mining projects.

ECL offered around Rs 1.2 lakh per acre as the company was not eager to secure surface right of the land.

In contrast, the state government agency West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) offered a maximum of Rs 11.24 lakh for homestead land, and between Rs 7.5 lakh to Rs 8.24 lakh per acre for the mono-crop land.

Coal India Ltd (CIL) had claimed that there were 1400 million tonnes of mineable coal reserves under the proposed aerotropolis site, and had recommended the project be moved 15 kilometres southwards.

ECL had the lease for the indicated reserves but most of this deposit was at around 600 metres below ground and some at even greater depth.

CIL was yet to lift coal from mines beyond 400m depth in india.

Reserves lying 600m to 1000m below ground could be developed with new private technology participation, but the cost of extraction was seen as being too high to make such a venture viable today.

CIL sources however told Business Standard that while mining the underground reserves was not viable now, it could become viable in future when coal prices would shoot up on account of shortage.

This appeared to worry the villagers.

One of the landowners from Dakhhin Khanda gram panchayat that Business Standard met on the proposed site of the aerotropolis said he was waiting to collect his cheque from the district magistrate's office.

The project by Bengal Aerotropolis Projects Ltd(BAPL) in association with Changi Airports International(CAI) covered 3500 acres in five gram panchayats in the Andal block and the Durgapur-Faridpur block.

BAPL would develop 2363 acres in the first phase and develop the remaining 1200 acres in the subsequent phases.

The first phase would include developing the airport, parts of the industrial & commercial hub, residential areas, theme park and allied areas.

The BAPL project site excluded all habitation from the project site, which was located along National Highway 2 to the south and a state highway to the west.

This is the second part of a three-part series on Bengal Aerotropolis airport & township project, promoted by a private sector investment group in West Bengal under a technical agreement with the Singapore government.