The scrapping of the Parandur greenfield airport project illustrates the tension between electoral politics and long-term infrastructure planning in India's federal structure. Discuss with reference to the Greenfield Airports Policy.

India's Greenfield Airports (GFA) Policy routes every new airport through a two-stage Union clearance — site clearance followed by in-principle approval — vetted in consultation with the AAI, DGCA and Ministry of Defence [2]. Parandur cleared both stages, yet was abandoned by a new State government, exposing how thin the line is between a technically approved project and a politically sustainable one.

The policy pathway followed at Parandur

• Site selected in 2022; site clearance granted in August 2024 and in-principle approval to TIDCO on 7 April 2025 for an international greenfield airport in Kancheepuram district [1].
• Approval was conditional — requiring roughly 90% of Phase-I land in hand and development to commence within five years, failing which it lapses [1].
• Crucially, the Policy certifies technical and airspace viability; site selection, land acquisition and financing remain State functions [2].

Where electoral politics intervened

• A sustained multi-year agitation by farmers of Ekanapuram and neighbouring villages over farmland loss, displacement and waterbodies made the site a live electoral issue.
• Land acquisition under the LARR Act, 2013 mandates Social Impact Assessment, consent thresholds and rehabilitation [3]; consent built late or thinly converts an infrastructure question into a political one.
• The successor government scrapped the ₹27,400-crore project, offering an additional terminal at the existing Chennai airport — a capacity stopgap, not an equivalent.

Federal implications

• Union approval is not self-executing: without State land and political will, central clearances have no traction.
• Reversal after nearly 25 years of deliberation raises the risk premium for long-gestation projects and unsettles investor expectations.
• It reflects, however, a legitimate federal feature — the State's democratic accountability to the affected population.

The episode is less an indictment of federalism than of sequencing: consent was sought after clearance rather than before it. Front-loading Social Impact Assessment, generous rehabilitation and land-pooling options, and building cross-party consensus at the site-selection stage itself, would let cooperative federalism deliver infrastructure that survives electoral cycles.