Transport Secy reviews status of Rourkela airport, new rail project

ROURKELA: Principal Secretary of Commerce and Transport department Madhusudan Padhi reviewed the status of Rourkela airport and progress of land acquisition for the Bimlagarh-Talcher new rail line project here on Thursday. 

Padhi, accompanied by Director of Biju Patnaik International Airport Debadutta Suranjita Jena and AGM (ATC) SK Sahu, inspected the airport and held a meeting with Sundargarh Collector Nikhil Pawan Kalyan, Rourkela ADM Aboli Sunil Naravane, authorities of SAIL, AAI and nodal officer of Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) UDAN. 

It was followed by another meeting with the officials of the district administration on expediting acquisition of land for the lingering Bimlagarh-Talcher broad gauge rail line project. Padhi said the Rourkela airport has licence to operate 19-seater aircraft. He said three operators, selected under RCS-UDAN scheme, do not have such aircraft and operating them is not economically feasible for them.  

Application has been submitted to grant 2C licence to Rourkela airport for which some compliances are required and an action plan has been worked out to remove hurdles in three to four months before the visit of officials of Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to the city. 

After it is given the 2C licence, the airport would be able to operate 72-seater aircraft. But, for that either the existing runway has to be relaid with five inch height carpeting or expanded to another 500 metre. 
The Principal Secretary also held discussions with the members of Bimlagarh-Talcher Sangram Samiti (BTSS) who have filed a Public Interest Litigation in the Orissa High Court against the inordinate delay in providing land to East Coast Railway (ECoR) for the project. 

BTSS president AP Biswal said Padhi assured that land acquisition process would be completed in Sundargarh in next three months and in four months the State Government would handover the required land in Angul and Deogarh districts to ECoR.