Ahead of inaugural flight today, cops say airport ‘unfit’
REASON SP says boundary wall of the airport is broken at many places and there are babool trees all over the wall
day before the first flight from Delhi lands at Sawai Madhopur airport, district administration said the airport was unfit for operation of regular flights.
Sawai Madhopur superintendent of police Maman Singh sent a letter to state intelligence chief on Tuesday to say the airport in the district was unfit for operation of regular flights in its present form. The district police chief wrote that the boundary wall of the airport was broken at many places and there are babool trees all over the wall.
HT has a copy of the letter Sawai Madhopur SP sent to additional director general of police (intelligence) on Tuesday.
A release from the civil aviation department said that under the intra-state connectivity, flights from Sawai Madhopur, Kota and Kishangarh to Delhi will start from Wednesday.
The release quoted additional chief secretary PK Goyal as saying that the state government was trying to bring more tourists to the state through flights from tourism city Sawai Madhopur, education city Kota and marble city Kishangarh.
“Stray cattle move freely at the airport and people living in its neighbourhood have constructed cattle sheds on airport land. They even use the airport as passage. Towards Chakchainpura village, the boundary wall is completely broken and farmhouses and cow shelters have opened their gates into the airport,” the SP has written.
“In view of passengers’ safety, the airport in its present form is unfit for regular flights, although sometimes chartered flights operate from here,” the letter said.
Meanwhile, Sawai Madhopur
JAIPUR:A
district collector KC Verma accepted the boundary wall was broken and there were encroachments on the airport land. “But we have got budget for repair of boundary wall and will start work on that soon,” he added.
Verma said there was a budget of Rs 311 lakh for repair and construction at the airport. “We will take the civil work concurrently with the operation of the flight,” the collector said.
Air connectivity in Rajasthan has taken a big leap in last few months with flights starting from smaller cities such as Bikaner, Kota and Jaisalmer.
The Rajasthan government is launching flights from Sawai Madhopur to increase the footfall at the Ranthambore tiger reserve. At present, the nearest airport is in Jaipur, 170 km away.
Inter and intra-state air services between Kota-Jaipur-Delhi, Delhi-Kishangarh, GanganagarJaipur-Delhi and Jodhpur-Ahmedabad too have been proposed.
An official of the state’s civil aviation department said Supreme Airlines will operate a 9-seater flight between Jaipur and Sawai Madhopur beginning April 11.
The Sawai Madhopur SP has also sought two platoons of Rajasthan Armed Constabulary for security arrangements at the airport. “In the district police, 227 posts of constables/ head constables are vacant and the district’s law and order situation are always sensitive because of communal and caste tensions. It is impossible to provide security at the airport from the district pool of police,” the letter said as it demanded RAC officers.
The civil aviation department release said that Rajasthan is India’s first country with air connectivity between so many cities. State government’s vision is that by 2020 the number of foreign tourists to Rajasthan should double from 1.5 million now to 3 million.