Jun 22, 2011,CHANDIGARH: The naming of the upcoming international airport at Mohali seems like an easy task, but the governments of Haryana and Punjab and UT administration have been arguing over the matter for some time. The Chandigarh Airport Advisory Committee has recently added further complication this contentious matter by putting forth its own suggestion that the airport be called Nek Chand International Airport.
The suggestion was presented as a non-controversial middle ground, naming the airport after a prominent dignitary from the Chandigarh since the upcoming international airport is a related outgrowth of the Chandigarh airport.
Nek Chand is creator of Chandigarh’s famed Rock Garden, an attraction that gets an average of over 5,000 visitors each day.
Chandigarh Airport Advisory Committee’s proposal has, rather than resolving tensions between Haryana and Punjab over the airport name, only revived and intensified these tensions.
Subhash Kataria, a member of the Chandigarh Airport Advisory Committee, said that Chandigarh should be viewed as belonging to the Centre government and therefore Haryana and Punjab should not be trying to claim it. He said that in this circumstance, the airport should be named for Nek Chand, one of the key people in creating Chandigarh’s international reputation as ‘City Beautiful.’ Surinder Bhardwaj, another member of the Union government-constituted panel, said that since the international airport is an extension of the existing Chandigarh airport, it should be named after a prominent person from the city and the state parties need not quarrel over the name. He said that such a quarrel only adds to other disputes between the states regarding issues like capital, territory and water.
The controversy however, has already been brewing for some time. After Punjab proposed to name the airport as Bhagat Singh International Airport, Mohali, Haryana insisted on sticking to the name of Chandigarh International Airport as detailed in the original Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) establishing the two states’ equal partnership in funding the airport project. However, Haryana’s chief minister agreed in May to compromise with Punjab, naming it after Bhagat Singh while retaining the location name of Chandigarh rather than Mohali. Now the matter has been taken up in the Union government's court, which will issue a notification once a decision has been made.
It is difficult to allow either state to dictate the name of the airport, as both are equal partners in the construction, which is a joint venture between them and Airport Authority of India (AAI). Haryana and Punjab each have a 24.5% stake in the project, while AAI has a 51% stake.
In September 2008 the Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) gave 305 acres of land in Jheourheri village for construction of the airport. The costs of acquiring this land were also a point of tension between Punjab and Haryana.