Bihar: Shorter airport runway hits tourism industry

GAYA: Efforts made by chief minister (CM) Nitish Kumar to develop Bodh Gaya as an important tourist destination has hit a roadblock due to a shorter runway at its airport. As a result, wide body planes with higher passenger capacity cannot land or take off from the airport.
“The ramifications of a shorter runway are far more serious than they appear to be,” Arun Kumar Ojha, a hospitality sector expert based in Bodh Gaya, told this newspaper.
“Various airlines are replacing narrow body planes with wide ones. As the number of narrow body planes shrinks, the Gaya airport will lose its importance,” said Ojha.
The Gaya airport runway is 2,286 metres long and 45 metres wide. It needs to be at least 500 metres longer in order to accommodate wide body planes. The width too needs to increase by another 15 metres and for all this, another 100 acres of land is required.
According to sources, the state government and the Airports Authority of India (AAI) have been engaged in a tug of war over the issue of land for nearly a decade. While the AAI wanted free land, the government insisted on payment-based land acquisition. Finally, the AAI yielded ground and got Rs 11 crore deposited in the treasury for land acquisition purposes. However, on account of the insistence of land owners for compensation at exorbitant rates and jobs, the issue could not be resolved.
Asked about the land issue, Gaya airport director Dilip Kumar said the matter was pending in court and therefore sub judice.
The Gaya airport’s apron too needs expansion. As of now, there are only three bays available. Two bays are linked with the aerobridge while the third one is conventional. At least two more bays and taxiway are required for the airport’s smooth functioning.
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