LUCKNOW: The Centre has planned several big-ticket plans for boosting air connectivity in several places of Uttar Pradesh, including Ayodhya and Kushinagar.
The Lal Bahadur Shastri (LBS) airport in Varanasi has been chosen as the first among few to start paperless entry of passengers using facial recognition security system in India.
Airports at Ayodhya and Kushinagar are important given their religious and spiritual connection.
Also an airport in Sonebhadra, the tribal district of eastern UP sharing borders with Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar, is expected to give a major boost to conventional tourism.
Run by the AAI, the LBS airport in PM Narendra Modi’s parliamentary constituency Varanasi is likely to turn paperless by this year end.
This came out during a virtual review meeting, which was chaired by UP CM Yogi Adityanath and Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, of civil aviation projects in the northern state.
Varanasi was among the four airports covered by the Centre’s Digi Yatra scheme facilitating paperless entry through facial recognition.
However, Yogi focused mainly on the development of infrastructure facilities at three proposed airports – Ayodhya, Chitrakoot and Myorpur in Sonebhadra district.
He claimed that three-and-a-half years ago, the state had only two active airports, but now seven airports were functioning and the state government was working on 17 airports in the state.
“Once all the 17 airports become functional, the state will get a connectivity boost, upswing in tourism, employment generation adding to the state’s development,” Yogi said, thanking PM Narendra Modi and Puri for the projects.
He also urged the Centre for assistance in resolving issues related to works at Bareilly, Hindon, Saharanpur, Meerut, Lucknow and Varanasi.