Himachal Pradesh’s poorly planned Mandi airport risks its limited fertile agricultural land
In July, farmers from the Balh valley, in Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi district, saw drones flying overhead. These drones were surveying their land for an international airport that is supposed to be built over their villages. The state government has planned to build an international airport in Himachal Pradesh since the early 2000s, but this plan has remained largely at a standstill. Following the union government’s funding for such an airport under the UDAN scheme in 2016—which aims to expand and develop new regional airports—and its Greenfield airport policy in 2017 the state government began formulating a plan to build the Balh valley airport. The state government announced early estimates in 2020 that 2,936 bighas—roughly 237 hectares in Himachal Pradesh—would be acquired for the project, but the land for the airport is still being surveyed. Constant changes to several government’s plans in the last four years have meant that no land acquisition has yet taken place.
The amount of land to be acquired is one among the many concerns about the airport. Farmers I spoke to from the valley said that the planned airport would take away the state’s limited fertile land. They feared that the growth in tourism—what the airport is ostensibly planned for—is unlikely to give them a stable livelihood. Environmental researchers told me that the state government had not yet clarified what the cumulative environmental impact of the airport and other supporting infrastructure would have on the state. Even members of Himachal Pradesh’s tourism industry and aviation experts said that the Mandi airport is likely to have only a minimal effect on tourism and that less destructive solutions, such as encouraging smaller aircrafts, to give a boost to the industry were overlooked. The government seemed to have ignored other locations for the airport despite the seeming technical unsuitability for the airport in the Balh valley. Despite these shortcomings, the state government seems intent on continuing the project.
Politicians and professionals in Himachal Pradesh have demanded an international airport in the state for at least two decades now. A union tourism ministry document from 2003 stated that one of the government’s primary goals should be the expansion of Shimla airport so that it can service international travel. However, in 2007, Virbhadra Singh from the Indian National Congress, who was then the chief minister of the state, proposed that an international airport be built in the town of Sundernagar, in Mandi district, instead. This site fell in the Balh valley, about two kilometres away from the currently planned location. His successor, Prem Kumar Dhumal from the Bhartiya Janata Party, too requested the union government to expedite permission for the construction of the airport.
However, successive governments appeared to have ignored this for about a decade. In 2017, Jai Ram Thakur, the current chief minister of Himachal Pradesh, who is also from BJP, pressed for the project to begin in earnest in the Balh valley. But further disagreements between politicians and bureaucrats in the state about the choice of site delayed the process. In April 2018, Dhumal’s son Anurag Thakur, announced that the union government and the Airport Authority of India were considering the Jahu area, about 50 kilometres from the current site. Jahu village lies in the Bhoranj block of Hamirpur district, at the intersection of Mandi, Hamirpur and Bilaspur districts, making it a centrally located site for the proposed airport. Anurag is the current union minister of sports, youth affairs and information and broadcasting.
The Jahu site enjoyed local political support. Several local officials including the heads of panchayats in the region, supported the construction. The 50-kilometre stretch suggested for the airport flanks the two sides of the Jahu bridge over Seer Khad. It starts at Jahu village in Hamirpur district and ends at Dali and Bhambla villages in Sarkaghat sub-division, in Mandi district. In 2018, both Inder Singh—Sarkaghat’s representative in the state legislative assembly, who is from the BJP—and Rajendar Jar, the president of Hamirpur district’s Congress committee, backed the Jahu site. “Most of the land they suggested for the airport here is government land and is not in use,” Munish Sharma, a member of the Sarkaghat district council, told me. “Locals here are willing to give their private land for the international airport. Cash crops are not grown here. Only subsistence farming is carried out and that too has come down drastically due to the problem of stray cattle.”
Although the Seer Khad has witnessed floods in the past, the locals from the region thought that it will not affect the airport. “Airport construction will not require diversion of Seer Khad and if adequate protection measures are taken, the site will be safe,” Jagdish Verma, a retired army officer from Narola village in Mandi, told me. The village lies at the border of Mandi and Hamirpur. When I asked about the land or livelihood loss connected with airport development in Jahu, both Munish and Verma said that the loss, if any would be “miniscule” compared to Balh. “We will know the exact cost of rehabilitation and compensation only when the government carries out a survey here,” Verma said. For Balh site, in 2018, the state government estimated the cost of land acquisition at Rs 2,786 crores.
Anurag, too, specified the wide availability of government land in Jahu as a key reason for considering the site. But the chief minister ignored this option. Soon after Anurag’s announcement, the state government began pre-feasibility surveys at multiple sites for identifying an appropriate location. Jahu was not among the sites. The current location in Balh valley too was not on the list. The surveys found that none of the sites on the list had enough land for the construction of the airport. “The Airport Authority of India conducted a pre-feasibility study for six sites but later, a seventh site, Balh valley was selected,” an official from WAPCOS, who wished to remain anonymous, told me. WAPCOS, or The Water and Power Company Limited, a public-sector undertaking under the union ministry of Jal Shakti—the ministry of water—had conducted a survey of the Balh valley site in July 2021.
In October 2019, the ministry of civil aviation gave in-principle approval to an international airport in the Balh valley. This was before there was clarity on whether a runway of international standards—which mandates a length of 3,150 meters—was even viable at the site. The next month, the ministry, the state government, the AAI and the directorate general of civil aviation met to discuss the “viability of operation of wide body aircrafts” at the proposed site.
Joginder Walia, the president of the Balh Bachao Kisan Sangharsh Samiti, a group of farmers and landowners who have come together to oppose the acquisition, filed a Right to Information Claim to get the minutes of the meeting. The minutes showed that the participants at the meeting discussed how the site would pose “serious challenges” because a 3,150-metre runway would require “several high rising mountains” to be sliced—by 500 metres in some cases. Since unidirectional airports—those where planes have to land and take-off only from one direction—have limitations, the minutes recorded, the possibility of an alternate site was discussed. However, there was no consensus, especially since the state government did not agree to the suggestion of another site.
The meeting concluded with a decision to initiate work on a 2,100-metre-long runway as Phase I. A further expansion of the runway was proposed in the meeting as Phase II, but no plan was made for it. The state government decided to proceed with the project. In July this year, when I visited the area, WAPCOS was carrying out a topographical survey using a remote sensing technology called LiDAR—light detection and ranging. “After a meeting between the AAI, DGCA and the Himachal government, we were asked to carry out a LiDAR survey,” the WAPCOS official who wished to remain anonymous told me. “This will help us find out exactly how many meters of a runway is possible without chopping the hills.” He told me it was the second time the land was being surveyed because the first survey did not clarify if building a longer runway was possible.
Dugrain is one of the eight villages that government officials have told the media will be acquired for the Balh valley airport. Locals told me that they had first learnt about the airport when surveyors came to their land in 2018. “We came to know of the Mandi airport project when the survey teams visited in 2018 and 2019,” Ghulam Rasool, a 66-year-old farmer from Dugrain village in Balh block, told me in July. He was referring to the first survey—an obstacle-limitation-surface survey conducted by the AAI, which studies obstacles for planes around an airfield. “They made several rounds here. The patwari”—a land revenue officer—“was also here.” Dugrain has 250 households, 90 percent of which are of Muslims.
Rasool and his three brothers have been living in Dugrain with their families for seven generations. They told me the region’s identity and communities had always been tied closely with agriculture. Suket, the princely state that ruled over the Balh valley before 1947, had a significant population of Muslims, Dalits, and communities that would be later classified as Other Backward Classes. “The Muslims here were invited from Punjab by the king of Suket for our sugarcane farming skills,” he said. Suket was one of the first princely states of the region to have a widespread movement for a merger with the Indian state in 1948. The movement was also centred around the abolition of feudal rule and redistribution of land from landlords to tillers, who mostly belonged to Dalit and Other Backward Classes communities.
In the six other villages that are reportedly going to be acquired for the project, Sianh, Tanwa, Jarlu, Kummi, Chhatru and Bhour, Dalits constitute 75 percent of the population and OBCs constitute 20 percent, according to the 2011 census. In the eighth village, Dhaban, 60 percent of the population is from OBC communities.
After independence, Suket, particularly the Balh valley, grew to be one of the most agriculturally rich regions in Himachal Pradesh. Owing to lift irrigation and shallow wells dug and following the construction of a factory of agricultural implements in the 1960s, Balh grew to be the largest irrigated area under cultivation in Mandi district. Balh is renowned for its quality wheat, paddy and off-season vegetable crops. With a large share of land granted forest status in Himachal, agricultural land amounts to only 17 percent of the total land area in the state. Out of this, about 80 percent of the cultivated land is rainfed, which means less than 4 percent of land in the state is irrigated. This makes irrigated land highly valuable for the agricultural economy of the state.
Even among irrigated tracts in Himachal, the Balh valley stands out. “We earn about five or six lakh rupees every six months from agriculture on our land,” Prem Chand Saini, a farmer and businessman from Tawan village, told me. “Even a small farmer makes about three or four lakh rupees every six months.” His family owns about 27 bighas of land, all of which he said was being surveyed for the acquisition.
Besides the loss of agricultural land, the Balh valley site also makes little geographical sense. Agriculture in the region is supported by the high-ground water table, which is a result of three natural water streams, the Lohari Khad, Kansa Khad and Suketi Khad. These streams swell up during the monsoon posing a serious threat of flooding at the proposed site. In August 2018, Suketi Khad, which flows into the river Beas, flooded and waterlogged the proposed location of the airport. The state council of science, technology and environment identified the river Beas and its tributaries, including Suketi Khad, as flood prone. This has often led to the government recomputing which pieces of land it will acquire. “Initially, the parking area for the airport was going to be over the land where Suketi Khad flows,” Rajeev Sharma, Mandi’s revenue officer, told me. “But diverting the river was becoming expensive. Now changes in the plan are being discussed.”
Because of constant changes in plans for acquisition, the government has not clearly communicated the amount of land that will be taken for the project. In June 2018, the land to be acquired was estimated to be 282 hectares. But in July 2021, Rajeev said that about 237 hectares of land would be acquired, 202 hectares of which would be private agricultural land.
“About 2,500 local families of Balh with a population of over 12,000 will get affected and most farmers will become landless because of Balh airport,” Walia, the president of the BBKS, said. He added that about 2,000 migrant workers from Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, who work in the farms will lose their livelihood. The BBKSS has been protesting the acquisition since June 2018, when they first found out about plans for an airport in the Balh valley. Walia told me that the organisation had written to Jai Ram, Narendra Modi and the district authorities several times, asking for fertile multi-crop land to not be acquired, but received no reply. In October 2018, under the flag of BBKSS, hundreds of farmers protested outside the district headquarters in Mandi. In November 2018, BBKSS met to the district commissioner of Mandi and asked that their lands be spared.
As the survey for the airport has progressed, the farmers’ agitation too has intensified. In 2020, they protested outside the office of the sub-divisional magistrate and wrote to the prime minister too. In March this year, they held a protest march in Mandi reiterating their demand. Following a statement from Jai Ram, ahead of the Mandi by polls scheduled for 30 October, that the 15th finance commission had recommended Rs 1,000 crores for the Balh international airport, the BBKSS held a press conference. In the press conference, on 23 September, they announced that if the chief minister does not invite them for a discussion, they will protest outside the house of Balh’s MLA on 10 November 2021.
Several farmers told me that Jai Ram is so intent on the Balh valley site because he too is from Mandi district and sees this as a matter of personal prestige. Prem Das Chaudhari, a farmer who owns 37 bighas of agricultural land in Tawan village, told me that this only made what they see as a betrayal by the government, worse. “We provide vegetables to Tandi, the chief minister’s own village, and yet he is planning to destroy our fields,” Chaudhari said. Jai Ram did not respond to questions emailed to him.
If the government moves to acquire land now, it will contravene existing laws. Clause 10 of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013 and the State Rules of 2016, which was passed in its pursuance, prescribe that irrigated multi-crop land should only be acquired in “exceptional circumstances,” as a “demonstrable last resort.” The 2008 Policy for Greenfield Airports and the 2020 guidelines for setting up greenfield airports suggest that no such airport should be allowed within an aerial distance of 150 kilometres of an existing civilian airport. The 2008 policy has a caveat that if an airport is proposed within this distance, the DGCA should examine its impact on the existing airports and then greenlight the project. The central government is also supposed to assess the need for a Greenfield airport considering the existing airports in the vicinity and the projected increase in air traffic. The Jubberhatti airport of Shimla lies only 50 kilometres away from the proposed site, the Bhuntar airport in Kullu is 30 kilometres away and the Gaggal airport in Kangra is 50 kilometres away. I wrote to Arun Kumar, the director general in the DGCA, asking if a study on the impact of the proposed airport in Mandi on existing airports has been carried out, but received no response.
The state government also has plans to expand these three existing airports by extending their runways raising further questions about the utility of the Mandi airport. The state’s information and public relations department reported that the initial identification of land for expansion has been done in all cases. The expansion of the Kullu airport has been stalled due to the technical difficulties and financial implications of diverting the course of Beas river. If the plan goes ahead, additional land needed for the expansion would be acquired from the forest department.
For Shimla airport, last year, the district collector of Solan district held a meeting with the landowners for the acquisition of about nine hectares of private land. Although agriculture is not pursued on most of the private land to be acquired, two villages, Kahla and Syri, had been previously affected by debris from construction of Shimla airport, which landed in their local streams and made irrigation of their farms difficult. Locals have reportedly demanded that they be given an assurance from the authorities that it will not happen again. In Kangra, 40 hectares have been identified for acquisition and the site is awaiting a feasibility survey. However, landowners on the site are resisting the takeover. Although estimation of exact land to be acquired is yet to be worked out, locals estimate that at least 200 families from Shahpur village and nearby Kangra stand to lose their agricultural lands.
A large part of the opposition to the Mandi airport comes from current circle rates. The circle rate is the price per unit of land as affixed by the district administration based on the past sale deeds. The rates are revised from time to time and on basis of these rates the compensation for land acquisition is decided. The state government recently brought down circle rates, which farmers from Mandi suspect was aimed specifically to reduce their compensation considerably. “To acquire our land the government has brought the circle rates down,” Rasool told me. “In my area, till last year the rate was 29 lakhs per bigha, now it is 16 lakhs per bigha.” This is visible in the analysis of circle rates available at Mandi district’s website. For instance, in Tawan, the circle rate of land within 100 meters of a road was Rs 59.3 lakhs per bigha between 2020–21, but in 2021–22 it was brought down to Rs 11.3 lakhs per bigha, a drop of 80 percent. Rajeev, Mandi’s revenue officer, however, told me that the reduction of circle rates was state-wide change, and brought in to acquire land for various infrastructure projects. “Circle rates have been brought down in the entire state. It was a state-level policy decision,” he said. The website of the Himachal Pradesh revenue department too hints towards a state-wide change as it displays a notice stating “circle rates updation in progress.”
The primary argument in support of the planned construction of Mandi airport and the expansion of the three current airports is that they will help upscale tourism in the state. The state’s short runways are linked to a high cost of flying, and thus expensive tickets. Budhi Parkash Thakur, the president of the Himachal Pradesh Travel Agents’ Association, told me that the rates for air travel to the state are the highest in the country for a 70-minute flying time. While these expansions are expected to boost regional connectivity under UDAN and make air travel cheaper, there are other changes the government can make that are less destructive to the environment and livelihoods of locals.
Budhi was part of the committee formed in September 2020 to suggest ways to improve air connectivity at Shimla and Kullu airports. “We suggested that the state should focus on promoting smaller aircrafts.” The committee gave its report to the state government in October 2020, but he told me a decision based on the report was still pending. He told me the government had offered no clarity about the Mandi airport. “We need an international airport in the heart of Himachal with a central location. But if the site supports only a runway of 2,100 metre length, it may still be used only for domestic travel. Whether Phase II will eventually come through or not isn’t known,” he said.
Locals offer more arguments against the current site. “The CM has suggested that the Mandi airport could be used for defence purposes as well,” Verma said. “But for defence purposes and international flights, multidirectional airports with clear weather conditions are preferred. The Balh area faces fog six months in a year. Whereas, Jahu area doesn’t have this problem.”
Aviation experts have argued that smaller aircrafts might be more effective than extending runways or building new airports. AK Sachdev, a former officer of the Indian Air Force who writes extensively about civil aviation in India, has argued that instead of runway expansion, smaller aircrafts should be given a boost. He told me that the UDAN scheme allows state governments to offer concessions to air transport operators to improve air connectivity. “The Himachal government can offer incentives to the charter companies, provide some tax rebates and make it attractive for them to run flight or helicopter services between say Shimla and Chandigarh,” he said. Sachdev told me he thinks neither expansions nor a new international airport in the state will improve overall connectivity in the state. “To support big runways, we need other infrastructure too—space for parking the aircrafts, terminals for seating the passengers, roads that support the passenger traffic. All that is difficult in a hilly state due to the terrain.”
Tourism also does not ensure as stable a livelihood as agriculture. Global market fluctuations and environmental disasters have made an already precarious industry like tourism more uncertain. COVID-19 has demonstrated how an economy reliant on limited income-generation activities, which are governed by outside market forces, can come to a sudden halt. Researchers from Himachal Pradesh told me that a thriving agriculture economy replaced by the uncertainty of tourism and real estate is a big risk for the state’s population. “We need diverse livelihood opportunities in mountain regions that also build resilience,” Manshi Asher, a researcher at Himdhara, a Himachal Pradesh-based environmental research and action collective, told me. “Large development projects, particularly hydropower, have already submerged large swathes of productive land in the state in the past,” Asher said. “Private land is still being acquired for widening of highways and installation of transmission lines. With only 10 percent of land under private occupation, scope for farming is limited in the state. Destroying commercial agriculture for uncertain tourism possibilities is not wise.”
Asher told me that large infrastructure projects often do not cater to the local populations or provide quality employment. “Only low-skilled, low paying jobs come through infrastructure and tourism development,” he said. As of May 2020, the rate of unemployment in the state was 28.2 percent, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy. “In Balh, agriculture provides employment. But we want to take that away and instead make the farmers do menial jobs,” Asher told me.
This was echoed by locals of the Balh valley. “Kisan kya karega? Taxi daalega.”—What will a farmer do? Buy and drive a taxi—Walia asked me. “Look at Dharamshala airport. It is one of the most lucrative airports in the state, and even there, peak flight movement is only for three months. How much can we earn by providing taxi service for the airport?” He told me that the government does not have a policy for alternate livelihood for the farmers of Balh. “They are just pushing us towards starvation.”
Farmers said that previous cases of large infrastructure projects in the state gave them little confidence in the government’s promises of rehabilitation. Those displaced for large dams such as Pong in Kangra, and Bhakhra in Bilaspur, barely received the compensation and support they had been promised. Rasool told me he shudders to think of a future in which he loses his home, agricultural land and livelihood and has to relocate. “Aaj ke mahual mein meri qaum ke logon ko kaun ghar dega rehne ke liye? Kahan jaa ke basenge hum log? Kahin aur humein izzat aur hifazat milegi?” —In today’s world, nobody will give a place to live to people of my community. Where will we settle? Will we find respect and safety anywhere else?”
This story was reported under the National Foundation of India (NFI) Fellowship for independent journalists.