It calls for the establishment of a non-profit corporation to oversee the area around the new airport.

The proposal will be revealed in a white paper issued by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) later this week, deputy Bangkok governor Bannasopit Mekwichai said yesterday.

She said the body would act like a state agency, with managing board members, to monitor the development of the 300 square kilometre area around the airport.

The plan would encapsulate the BMA's objections to the government's Suvarnabhumi City plan, the deputy governor said.

The area would include parts of Bangkok's Lat Krabang and Prawet districts as well as the airport's eastern and southern areas, without interfering with the duties of city administrators.

After its mission is complete, the corporation would hand the areas over to municipal administrators and would then move elsewhere or be dissolved, she said.

Compared to the Suvarnabhumi City plan, the corporation would be more efficient, she said, with three phases within a 20-year period; firstly, the preparation, secondly, town development, and finally, hand-over of the area, she said.

Administrations would have to allow the corporation to take care of the area's physical development while they retain responsibility for building permission, tax collection and resident registration.

The Suvarnabhumi City plan, on the other hand, aims to set up a special economic and administrative zone, which after four years of operation would be elevated to an all-new local administrative organisation, Bannasopit said.

The deputy Bangkok governor said the urbanisation of areas around the new airport would be a major obstacle to Thailand's goal of becoming a regional aviation hub.

No other country in the world would surround an airport with a city, she remarked.

Bannasopit said the BMA's City Planning Department had listed reasons for opposing the Interior Ministry plan to set up a 77th province around the airport, which would include Lat Krabang and Prawet districts.

The white paper will be completed later this week and sent to Governor Apirak Kosayodhin for approval before being forwarded to the government, Bannasopit said.

The government's Suvarnabhumi City would cause flooding in eastern Bangkok, the report says, because the airport and residential estates would occupy a vast catchment basin and block Bangkok's floodwater drainage system.

The plan also ignores the fact the BMA already has a development plan for the area aimed at supporting growth of the airport.