The Airport VIP Road connecting Athani to Kochi Airport is still rolling out to be a hazard zone for the public. Although recession has taken a toll on jobs, criminal activities are on a rise in this area. They mainly target the airline crowd which include passengers, their relatives, friends and then comes the regular people who uses that stretch of the road. This 4 KM road has become a serious issue and so far steps taken to curb the criminal activities have not turned out to have any major impact.

The authorities, the Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL), which owns the VIP Road, has not been able to make any positive strides in riding that region of its problems. Even after involving other sorts of security forces such as the police and other private security personnel, it has not been effective. The police facing a staff shortage can do nothing much on their part while the private security personnel are more interested in controlling the parking activities such as obtaining parking fees and such.

A rise in the international flights that operate in the night has turned out to be an added factor to rise in the criminal activities. These include theft, harassment, attack, etc. Huge quantities of gold have been reported to have been stolen from vehicles plying through this isolated stretch and two wheelers are the ones that are mostly hit by the criminals. This can cause a major issue to tourists, domestic and international and in turn hit the economy of Kerala which has major shares from the tourism sector. Besides that fact, the safety of the public are also at stake and with the launch of the Golf Club, Industrial Park and other projects at the airport its a waiting bomb to explode, i.e the bomb being a more intense cycle of criminal activities.

If the authorities don’t find some sort of solution to this rising concern, we will be having a major problem in our hands.