More than 300 acres of farmland in four surrounding farming villages will be acquired by the district administration soon, for expansion of the new airport on Chennai – Bengaluru National Highway (NH 48) in Vellore. Revenue officials began mapping the villages as part of identification of land for acquisition.

Officials of the Revenue Department, which will conduct the mammoth exercise, said Collector P.S. Leela Alex instructed to identify at least 300 acres of land for expansion of the new airport. “We have been ordered by the District Collector to identify possible land for the expansion of the new airport in surrounding villages. We have started the process,” a revenue official told .

The action by the district administration comes after Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) treasurer and Rajya Sabha MP L.K. Sudhish met Ms. Alex at the Collectorate to discuss spending ₹5 crore under his Member of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) in the district.

Mr. Sudhish also said that Union Civil Aviation Minister K. Ram Mohan Naidu sought at least an additional 100 acres of land from the State government for expansion of the new airport in the district. “I also intended to meet Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay to request him to allocate necessary land required for the expansion of the new airport,” Mr. Sudhish later told the press.

Revenue officials said that identified surrounding villages are Poigai, Abdullapuram, Anpoondi, and Pudur. Land deeds and survey numbers of the plots will be checked to identify government lands, private patta lands, and government wastelands in these villages. 

Thereafter, field-level revenue officials, including markers and surveyors, will conduct mapping of the identified lands. It will help them assess the total compensation required for these private lands.

As per norms, land should be acquired only by the State government for public purposes. The acquired land will be handed over to Airports Authority of India (AAI), that will claim ownership of the acquired land after paying necessary compensation to donors. “It will take at least six months to complete the entire land acquisition process. As the new airport is located on the highway, the proposed expansion will be accelerated,” said a revenue official.

Spread over 100 acres, the new airport has a runway, which is 850-metre-long, taxiway, ground handling equipment, air traffic control (ATC), and aviation information receiving facility, terminal building, and an oil depot.

The existing old airstrip, which could operate only eight-seater aircrafts, at the new airport was expanded to operate 20-seater planes that would connect major airports like Bengaluru, Chennai, and Hyderabad.

Officials said that the new airport in Vellore was sanctioned under the second phase of the UDAN-RCS (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik- Regional Connectivity Scheme) a few years ago to provide connectivity to smaller towns, especially those that are closer to metropolitan and tier-two cities.

Apart from Vellore, Thanjavur was another prominent town in the State that was selected under the scheme for the operation of domestic flights with ATR aircraft.