787 acres of Airports Authority of India land is encroached: Ajit Singh

NEW DELHI: A total of 787 acres of land of belonging to Airports Authority of India has been encroached at various airports and aeronautical communication stations across the country.

As on February 29 this year, 787.922 acres of AAI land at various airports and aeronautical communication stations have been encroached compared to 726.118 acres on March 31, 2011, Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha today.

He said AAI was facing difficulty in removing encroachment due to legal cases and getting police protection for eviction of encroachments from the AAI land.

"AAI has erected fencing, constructed boundary wall and also initiated eviction proceedings against the encroachers," he said.

In replay to a seperate question, Singh said that AAI has submitted proposals to levy user development fee at 11 airports which include Dehradun, Chandigarh, Srinagar, Raipur, Ranchi, Aurangabad, Bhopal, Indore, Surat, Madurai and Coimbatore.