By Our Staff Reporter
New Delhi, 27 Jun: Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami made a courtesy call on Union Minister Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu in New Delhi today and congratulated him on assuming the responsibility.
On this occasion, the Chief Minister requested the Union Minister to direct the officers concerned to get approval from the Airports Authority of India to start the process of expansion of Pantnagar Airport as soon as possible. The Chief Minister said that due to the short runway at Pantnagar in Udham Singh Nagar district, it is not possible to land or take off big aircrafts. To enable larger aircrafts to operate from here, the airport has to be expanded by increasing the runway.
The CM pointed out that, at present, the length of the runway at Pantnagar Airport is only 1,372 metres and that it has to be increased to 3000 metres to enable operation of larger aircraft from there. The Chief Minister said that, for the expansion of the airport, the state government has currently acquired a total of 325.5126 hectares of land from various departments and National Highway SIDCUL. Out of which 212.4868 hectares of land has been transferred to the Civil Aviation Department.
Dhami also urged Union Minister KRM Naidu to use his influence with the Union Ministry of Forest and Environment regarding approval of transfer of 87.0815 hectares of land of the Forest Department for the expansion of Jolly Grant Airport located in Dehradun and to grant permission to start the work on expansion. He shared with the union minister that the tender process for operating air service from Jolly Grant Airport to Kathmandu (Nepal) has already been completed. In view of which, there is an urgent need to speed up the process of granting to Jolly Grant Airport the status of an international airport. The Chief Minister also pointed out that there is no legal obstacle in transferring 87.0815 hectares of forest department land to the Civil Aviation Ministry for expansion of the airport as Uttarakhand High Court has approved this in its decision. He also shared that the process of obtaining no objection certificate for the land falling under the purview of NTRO adjoining the airport boundary is also in progress.
The Chief Minister further sought the help of the Union Minister regarding the establishment of an Air Traffic Control (ATC) at Kedarnath Dham and at Sahastradhara Helidrome of Dehradun and informed that at present there are three airports in Uttarakhand where air traffic service is available including VHF communication. However, since the VHF communication system is ‘Line of Sight’ based, it does not cover a large majority of the area in the state. In view of this, air traffic control should be established at Kedarnath Dham and at Sahastradhara Helidrome. Dhami added that under the Uttarakhand Air Connectivity Scheme, an agreement has been reached for the operation of Delhi-Pithoragarh-Delhi flight with Alliance Air for the border city of the state, Pithoragarh. The state government has obtained a 2C category licence for the airport. The Chief Minister said that simulator training is necessary for pilots to operate ATR 42 aircraft. He requested the Union Minister to direct the department concerned to start the simulator training process for Alliance Air soon so that ATR 42 flight between Delhi and Pithoragarh can begin soon.
