LUCKNOW: Kushinagar international airport, an endeavour to connect Buddhist pilgrimage sites around the world, will be inaugurated by PM Narendra Modi on Wednesday.
Kushinagar, considered to be comparatively a backward district in the Gorakhpur division, is expected to bring a huge uptick in tourism and the earnings of the people of eastern UP when the airport becomes operational.
UP has with international airports already functional in Lucknow and PM Modi’s parliamentary constituency Varanasi. By 2024, the state is likely to become the only state in the country with five international airports as Ayodhya airport will become functional by 2022 and Jewar by 2024.
Kushinagar is the place where Buddha attained 'mahaparinirvana' (salvation). With international air connectivity, the place will become easily accessible for Buddhist pilgrims across the world.
On February 23, the Director-General Civil Aviation (DGCA) issued a licence for international flights to Kushinagar airport which will be the third licensed international airport of UP.
The inauguration of Kushinagar International Airport will be marked by the landing of the inaugural flight from Colombo, Sri Lanka, carrying a Sri Lankan delegation of over 100 Buddhist monks and dignitaries including the 12-member holy relic entourage bringing the holy Buddha relics for exposition.
The delegation will have five ministers of the Lankan government led by cabinet minister Namal Rajapakshe. Built at an estimated cost of Rs 260 crore, Kushinagar Airport will serve nearby
districts of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and is expected to give a fillip to investment and employment opportunities in the region.
Kushinagar International Airport has the longest runway of 3.2 km length in the state and is 45 metres wide. The airport has the capacity for four arrivals and four departures of flights per hour. It also has a 3,600 square metre interim passenger building and arrangements are being made to make night flights also possible.
As per immigration bureau records, there has been a footfall to the tune of 42 lakh tourists in Kushinagar from 18 Buddhist countries in the last five years. “After international air connectivity, tourism will increase by 20%,” said AK Dwivedi, director, Kushinagar International Airport.
Significantly, the other two international airports functional in UP are Lucknow’s Chaudhury Charan Singh airport and Varanasi’s Lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport.
While Chaudhury Charan Singh Airport is connected to 29 destinations and five countries, Lal Bahadur Shastri Airport is connected with 16 destinations and two countries.
The air connectivity of Uttar Pradesh has increased manifold since 2017. Till 2017, only four airports were functional in UP. Among them, only Lucknow and Varanasi were in regular use. Rest Gorakhpur and Agra seldom had flights.
At present, eight airports including Lucknow, Varanasi, Gorakhpur, Prayagraj, Kanpur, Bareilly, Agra, and Hindon are fully functional in the state. “Before 2017, there were only 25 destinations from Lucknow, Varanasi, Gorakhpur, and Agra combined; today, that service has expanded to three times more destinations,” said a senior civil aviation official.
The international destinations with which Uttar Pradesh is connected include Bangkok, Kaula Lampur, Kathmandu, Sharjah, Dubai, and Muscat.
Along with the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, work on Maryada Purushottam Shri Ram Airport is also on the fast track. For this, in February 2021, the Centre released Rs 250 crore and the state government sanctioned a total of Rs 1001.77 crore to buy 555.7 acres of additional land for the dream project. So far, 377 acres of land have been provided to AAI for the development of the airport.
Work is being done to start flights from the airport by 2022.
Similarly, the construction of ‘Noida International Airport, Jewar, one of the largest in the world, according to the government, will start soon. In addition to that, eight more airport projects at Azamgarh, Aligarh, Chitrakoot, Lalitpur, Moradabad, Sonbhadra, Shravasti, and Saharanpur (Sarsawan) are under construction and will be operational soon. UP Civil Aviation Secretary Surendra Singh said once all the 17 airports become functional, the state will get a connectivity boost, which will result in an upswing in tourism and employment.