Jeypore: The Koraput district administration Friday held a public hearing at Sauraguda village under Jeypore block for the expansion of the Jeypore airstrip with the state government giving its approval for the project.
Work on the airstrip has also begun and the administration would formally approach the collector April 18 to obtain the required land for the purpose.
Villagers of Sauraguda attended the hearing where they expressed their opinion. The administration was represented by Jeypore BDO Trinath Majhi, Roads and Buildings (R&B) assistant engineer Padma Charan Panigrahi, panchayat extension officer and the sarpanch were present on the occasion.
Reports said the government has decided to expand the runway of the airport sprawling across 59 acres of land so that 50 to 70-seater aircrafts can land on the airstrip. While about 28 acres of land is required for the purpose, the administration has decided to acquire 14 acres of private land along with equal size of government land for the proposed expansion.
Earlier, the R&B department was asked to submit a detailed project report (DPR) to the government for expansion of the airport. At present, the length of the runway is 914 m and it needs to be increased up to 1,500 m to accommodate the landing of 50- to 70-seater airplanes. According to the plan, the airport is likely to be expanded towards Sauraguda village. However, a concrete bridge has to be laid on a canal which is 200 m from the airport and the runway would further expanded up to 400 m from there. The R&B department had submitted a DPR with a budget of Rs 30 crore to execute the project. The department started working on it after getting the nod from the government.
Meanwhile, it is learnt the state government had also prepared a DPR, following the guidelines of Airport Authority of India (AAI), to make Jeypore a fully commercial airport. The airport was supposed to be set up on a patch of 445 acres at a budget of Rs180 crore. The Chief Minister had also written several times to the Centre to bear the construction cost of the aerodrome. Accordingly, a delegation of AAI visited the strip January 15, 2013. However, there was no further headway in this regard.
Left with no option, the state government asked the R&B department to submit a fresh DPR to start 50 to 70-seater flights from the airstrip. PNN
