Agra: “Why can’t these people build a world class airport in Agra? This is injustice to Agra”. These are excerpts from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s public address in Agra on November 21, 2013, while he was campaigning for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. The PM’s words are now being highlighted on posters and banners by members of tourism organizations who have been demanding an international airport in Agra.These posters have already been put up in some parts of the city and the agitators claim that they will be pasted in each and every corner of Agra if the Modi government does not pay heed to their long-pending demand.Towards the bottom of these hoardings, there is a mention of PM Modi’s promise and an appeal to him to honour his commitment. Members of over 20 tourism organizations say that through these posters, they want to remind the PM about his promise.From lighting candles to holding public meetings, these organizations have been holding various forms of protests to “wake up” the government to address their decades-old demand. Rajiv Tiwari, convener of the action committee, said, “We will add more hoardings in the city to create awareness and remind our elected representatives of their commitment. We want to turn this into a mass movement which will end only after we achieve our goal.”Recently, the Centre had given its approval for an airport at Jewar in the National Capital Region. Following this, over 20 tourism and social organizations came together to form a pressure group.Meanwhile, a sum of Rs 64.94 crore for acquiring a part of land for building Agra airport’s civil enclave is yet to be received by the authorities here. The fund was sanctioned in June this year and is now expected to be released only by next month end. As a result, the construction work which was supposed to start from first week of July will now begin in September.For the proposed civil terminal, 23.32 hectares of land was to be acquired. So far, around 14.07 hectares have been acquired and a sum of Rs 84.71 crore has already been spent for this purpose. The administration had sought Rs 64.94 crore more to acquire the remaining land and the fund was sanctioned last month.At present, the airport terminal is located within the premises of the Air Force building. This makes the flight operations difficult and also imposes restrictions on movement of passengers.

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