The proposed establishment of a special administrative zone around Suvarnabhumi Airport is one of those fantastical ideas that Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra first broached shortly after his government was battered by corruption scandals, particularly irregularities connected to the purchase of airport baggage-scanning machines. Fleshed out around last October, the proposal was reportedly met with an enthusiastic response by residents of Bang Sao Thong sub-district and Bang Phli district of Samut Prakan, and Lat Krabang and Prawet districts of Bangkok. These would be lumped together to form Thailand's 77th province.

With Suvarnabhumi Airport scheduled to open for commercial services on September 28, the caretaker Thaksin government has treated as a matter of great urgency the transformation of the area surrounding the new airport into a world-class metropolis through huge investments in infrastructure and tourism development. On Tuesday, the Cabinet approved in principle a draft Nakhon Suvarnabhumi Bill prepared by the Interior Ministry.

The government says the idea is to make sure Thailand achieves its objective of making Suvarnabhumi Airport one of Asia's main air-transport hubs. The creation of a special administrative zone would enable the government to bypass administrative and budgetary constraints that normally stand in the way of implementing this sort of mega-project, which requires centralised planning and an injection of at least Bt500 billion from the public and private sectors.

The proposed special administrative zone would cover 521 square kilometres, roughly the same size as Singapore, and is currently home to about 462,000 people.

Now that the Cabinet has approved the draft bill on Nakhon Suvarnabhumi, the Council of State will review it before public hearings are held to sound out local opinion. The Interior Ministry said it believed residents would respond positively to the proposal, because it would bring economic benefits and raise their living standard. The Nakhon Suvarnabhumi Bill will be submitted to the next government for possible review, before being sent to the next House of Representatives.

The bill stipulates that for the first four years, the proposed metropolis would be run by an Interior Ministry-appointed governor under the supervision of a 30-member administrative board chaired by the prime minister. After four years, the administrative board would be dissolved and the special administrative zone administered by a governor. It is still unclear what final administrative structure the special administrative zone would take after the initial four-year period.

One possibility is the proposed new metropolis would eventually evolve into a local administrative body with a high degree of autonomy and administered by an elected governor answerable to an elected assembly similar to the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA).

Interior Minister Kongsak Wantana even said Suvarnabhumi's special administrative zone would include new tourist attractions, such as a floating market in one of the existing waterways that are now used primarily as part of Bangkok's flood-prevention system to drain excess rainwater.

But not everyone was bowled over by the idea.

The BMA has made known its objection to the proposal. It reasons that the creation of a new administrative zone could compromise the capital's flood-prevention system if areas meant to serve as basins to hold excess rainwater or waterways designed to drain floodwater were altered by accelerated urbanisation in the proposed new metropolis.

The plan to attract international travellers to the special administrative zone should also be taken with a grain of salt. After all, the area around a major international airport is not exactly an oasis of peace and charm that tourists are eager to visit. Neither is yet another bogus floating market staged by greedy tourism developers.

The Thaksin administration must be reminded that as a caretaker government, it is not supposed to rush into proposals, especially with no functioning Parliament. Given Thaksin's dismal record as a leader severely tainted by corruption scandals and who has a penchant for populist policies that fly in the face of fiscal common sense, his plan for a new metropolis should be minutely scrutinised by a sceptical public.