Smita Adhikari, Pokhara, Jan. 27: Pokhara Regional International Airport (PRIA) project which is now under construction has been facing public protest over land acquisition issue.

Since mid-January, it extended its area holding more than 90 ropanis of land, which led to a new round of protest.

The PRIA project is going to acquire 80 ropanis of land in the south-east, six ropanis in west and four ropanis in east direction. The PRIA has occupied 200 hectares of land, of which 3,795 ropanis is received through acquisition.

Along with the land to be added, locals of the respective areas have been protesting complaining that the land acquisition act was not practical and they were afraid of losing more land to the airport.

Since 1978 when the land was first pooled for the airport, the airport has already acquired the land of locals four times. Still, the landowners fear that the airport project will take more of their land.

Meanwhile, they are not happy with the compensation amount they are paid. So, they have been protesting for reasonable compensation. They blamed the project had affected the settlement of hundreds of families.

According to the locals, the worst part of the project was that it did not know how much land it required to complete.

"The estimation of the required land should be predetermined so that the locals can prepare for new settlement properly. We are fighting also on behalf of those farmers whose livelihood has already been affected due to the PRIA project," one of the leaders of PRIA Public Concern Committee Ganesh Poudel said. According to the Environmental Impact Assessment of the project, it has affected almost 300 families during its construction phase.

But the locals claimed that the farmers had already lost 10,000 ropanis of land to the project. Poudel said that the project had turned thousands of ropanis of cultivable land barren.  

In mid-January, the project again extended its area to add the essential construction, which was not in its preliminary planning.

Currently, under the initiation of Pokhara Airport Public Concern Committee, the locals have been staging a protest at the main gate of the PRIA, displaying placards and chanting slogans. They also picketed the Ward Office of Pokhara-14 on Friday and demonstrated a 'Silent Rally' on Saturday. They have also announced further programmes of protest. They demanded that the project should fix the area of land required for it and pay proper compensation to the locals.     

According to Airport authorities, the construction of flight infrastructures is of uncertain nature. "But we will not do injustice to the public as we are planning to compensate them as per their contribution," Deputy Manager of PRIA Project Er. Krishna Prasad Poudel said.

According to him, recently it acquired 90 ropanis of land to construct the 'Glide Path' and it was identified in due course of making other pre-determined constructions. The Glide Path is a mechanism of runway radio wave that gives clear directions to the aircrafts during their landing.