JEYPORE: Despite successive efforts by State and Central governments, southern Odisha districts remain out of reach for air travellers. Even the last push by the State Government to get Jeypore airstrip ready by January, 2018 by pumping adequate funds has failed to meet the deadline.
Keeping the tourism potential of scenic spots of southern districts and industrial development of the region in view, the then chief minister Sadasiv Tripathy had started the work for setting up an airstrip way back in 1964. Though the airstrip was ready, it could not be operational due to lack of logistic support and ancillary infrastructure. Subsequently, the project was put on backburner by successive governments.
However, two years back the Civil Aviation Ministry announced to include the airstrip in the map of major airports of the country. As a result, the State Government started development of the airstrip. The Government also earmarked over `100 crore for upgradation of the airstrip in March last year and procured 25 acres of land in addition to existing 30 acres in order to spread the area of the airfield. It set January, 2018 deadline for completion of the project.
Though the construction work has been carried out by different agencies under the Works department for the past one year, no significant progress has been made so far, sources said. As many as five teams of different wings of State and Central governments visited the airstrip in the past a few months to gear up the works. Besides, the air traffic control officials from Kolkata visited the site but did not give clearance to start flying operation.
Interestingly, the State and Central governments had given green signal to private operator Air Odisha to launch the air service between Jeypore and Bhubaneswar two years back. The Air Odisha, also put a nine-seater light aircraft in operation on experimental basis. But the service was withdrawn following differences between the private operator and the State Government.