Mail News Service
New Delhi, April 25 : Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Shri K. C. Venugopal informed Rajya Sabha today that in order to connect the remote hill areas of the North Eastern Region the Airports Authority of India (AAI) is developing non-operational airports at Daparizo in Arunachal Pradesh, Tura in Meghalaya and Kamalpur in Tripura for operation of ATR42/ATR72 type of aircrafts. The AAI is also developing civil enclaves at Along, Passighat and Ziro in Arunachal Pradesh and Rupsi in Assam. However, the proposals are subject to the land acquisition by the State Government for these projects. In addition to this, construction of Greenfield airport in Pakyong and operationalisation of Tezu airport in Arunachal Pradesh has also been taken up, which can handle ATR-72 type of aircrafts. Once these airports are developed, they can be used for STOL aircrafts also, subject to commercial viability and demand.
The AAI had undertaken a study through Rail India Technical and Economic Services (RITES) for improving the air connectivity in north east which includes air connectivity among state capitals and other important remote locations in the north-east region.
The Minister also informed Rajya Sabha that Air India is operating three flights/week on Aizwal-Imphal route through Airbus A 319 and eight flights on Aizwal-Kolkata route through Airbus A-319. Operations in domestic sector have been deregulated and flights are being operated by airlines concerned on the basis of commercial viability subject to adherence of Route Dispersal Guidelines laid down by the Government with a view to achieve better regulation of air transport services taking into account the need for air transport services of different regions of the country. According to these guidelines, all scheduled operators are required to deploy in the North Eastern region, Jammu & Kashmir, Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep (Category-II routes) at least 10% of their deployed capacity on trunk routes (Category-I routes). Further, at least 10% of the capacity thus required to be deployed on Category-II routes, is required to be deployed for connectivity exclusively within these regions (Category -II A).
Read more / Original news source: http://manipur-mail.com/better-air-connectivity-for-ne-region/
