Sabari Airport is a proposed greenfield airport project to be built in Manimala of Kottayam district in Kerala, India. The proposed site is spread over of land at Cheruvally Estate in Manimala panchayath, Kanjirappally Taluk in Central Travancore which is located on the way to the Sabarimala temple, 136 km from state capital Thiruvanathapuram and 113 km from Kochi. Once commissioned, this would be the fifth airport in the State. In February 2017, the Kerala government gave in-principle approval to construct the airport and the Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation was asked to conduct a feasibility study. The Sabarimala temple, situated on the Western Ghats in Kerala's Pathanamthitta district, is one of India's holiest shrines which attracts nearly 50 million visitors per season. As of December 2019, an average of 75,000 pilgrims visit Sabarimala on a daily basis ever since the beginning of the annual pilgrim season in mid-November. Presently the only way to reach the hill shrine is by road. The increase in the number of pilgrims visiting the temple had prompted the government to look at an airport as an option to reduce traffic congestion during the pilgrimage season. KSIDC had issued global tenders for the feasibility study of the project. The tender was won by American Consultancy firm Louis Berger Group. Louis Berger submitted a techno-economic feasibility study and environmental impact assessment of the proposed greenfield airport in December 2018. However, the consultancy did not conduct the environment impact assessment as the state had not taken a final decision on the project including that of land acquisition. In 2019, the state government constituted a search committee to select a special officer for the project who would be given the task of coordinating with the consultancy in acquiring environment impact clearances and for the Union civil aviation ministry’s approval for the project. In December 2019, the state government appointed V Thulasidas, managing director of the Kannur International Airport Ltd as the special officer for the project.
Cheruvally Estate
The site for the proposed airport is Cheruvally Estate, formerly the site of a rubber plantation. Initially, the estate belonged to Harrison plantations and later by the RPG Goenka group. Gospel for Asia, a Christian missionary organization under Believers' Church took it over from the Goenka group. The ownership of the property was disputed in 2017 before the High Court of Kerala claiming that the Estate was government land. A 2018 High Court order affirmed the church's ownership of the Estate.
