Kolkata, Mar 11 : Since it was inaugurated with much fanfare by Pratibha Patil, president of India, two years back, the Baljek Airport in West Garo Hills in Meghalaya has remained non-functional. It was aimed at boosting the tourism infrastructure in the region and smooth transit of perishable commodities like flowers. The airport was expected to connect the Garo Hills with the rest of the country, thus encouraging tourism in the region
The airport set up at Jengjal, around 33 kms from Tura in West Garo Hills, was built at a cost of `12.52 crore. It was inaugurated on October 23, 2008 when the UDP-NCP led government was in power in the state.
Since its inception, the project was marred in controversy as the proposal was sent to the Centre in 1983, but was sanctioned only in 1995.
As conceived earlier, only a 20-seater Dornier aircraft can land at Baljek Airport. The inordinate delay has been caused due to the government's decision to extend the runway to accommodate 50-seater aircrafts.
This is the second airport in Meghalaya after Umroi in Ri Bhoi district.
Political circles indicate that the Garo Hills is dominated by chief minister Dr. Mukul Sangma's political opponent P A Sangma, the former speaker of the Lok Sabha and co-founder of NCP. Caught in this political cross-fire is the tourism sector of the region.
The chief minister, during his recent visit to New Delhi, had met prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and sought central fiscal assistance to expand the airport.
At least ` 100 crore is required to make the airport fully functional after the expansion of the runway. In a recent report, The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) had hauled up the state government for not making the airport functional and wasting public money.
The report states that though the state government knew about the inadequacy of the runway several years ago when the project was first conceived, but it did not initiate effective steps to acquire land for the extension of the runway.
0 comments:
Post a Comment