SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Cou­va South MP Rudranath In­dars­ingh says he is elat­ed with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's an­nounce­ment to con­struct a do­mes­tic air­port in his con­stituen­cy-on the site of the Cam­den airstrip in Cou­va. The Prime Min­is­ter, in her ad­dress to par­ty sup­port­ers dur­ing Tues­day night's one-year an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship at Mid Cen­tre Mall, Ch­agua­nas, spoke of build­ing the new air­port at Cam­den.

In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, In­dars­ingh said the airstrip had been aban­doned since the for­mer PNM regime closed op­er­a­tions at Ca­roni (1975) Ltd. The fa­cil­i­ty was used by Ca­roni for its aer­i­al spray­ing op­er­a­tions to con­trol pests which at­tacked sug­ar plan­ta­tions on the 75,000 acres of lands Ca­roni cul­ti­vat­ed. The airstrip was leased to a lo­cal au­to rac­ing body for drag rac­ing through the Min­istry of Sport un­der then min­is­ter Roger Boynes.

How­ev­er, that lease ex­pired and the fa­cil­i­ty re­mained un­der­utilised. In­dars­ingh said an air­port in the area would on­ly serve to ex­pand the po­ten­tial of Cou­va South and would auger well to as­sist in­vestors on the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate, as well as the lo­cal com­mu­ni­ty. He said there would al­so be ad­di­tion­al em­ploy­ment ben­e­fits for na­tion­als and in­creased eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ties when the project be­gan.