SHIVAMOGGA: Shivamogga, the Gateway of Malnad, is all set to find a place on the aviation map as Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the newly constructed airport at Sogane, 15 km from the city, on Monday. Close to 2 lakh people are expected to take part in the inaugural ceremony scheduled to be held at noon.
Modi will also lay the foundation stones for Shivamogga-Shikaripura railway line, coaching depot, seven highway works, 1,204 Jal Jivan Mission works and eight multi-village drinking water projects, together to be taken up at an estimated cost of Rs 3,337.40 crore.
Apart from the airport, the PM will also inaugurate 44 Smart City works, railway bridges, 908 Jal Jivan Mission works, four multi-village drinking water projects and other works completed at a cost of Rs 1,789.94 crore.
Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, former CM B S Yediyurappa, MP BY Raghavendra among others will be present. Spread across 775 acres, the greenfield airport has been constructed at a cost of Rs 449.22 crore and is the first airport being maintained by the Karnataka State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation. It is not handed over to the Airports Authority of India (AAI).
The airport will cater to the central and Malnad parts of Karnataka and is expected to develop the region in terms of attracting investments and developing tourism. Shivamogga airport has the second longest runway in Karnataka, after Bengaluru’s Kempegowda International Airport. The 3.2 km long runway has the facility for night landing. The passenger terminal is spread across 4,320 sq ft.
Even though the effort to build the airport was made in 2007 with the government approving the project, the same could not become successful for over a decade owing to several bottlenecks. The government had acquired 169.32 acres of private land while 609.3 acres was government land. The project was cancelled as the contractor failed to execute the project.
In August 2015, the government decided to build a small airport under the public-private partnership (PPP) model. Later, it approved to construct a no-frills (low fares) airport on November 19, 2018. The KSIIDC took up the work on November 26, 2019, under the EPC (Engineering, Procurement, and Construction) model. PWD invited tenders to build the airport.
On December 14, 2019, the government decided to extend the runway up to 2,050m to facilitate the landing of ATR-72 aircraft and later approved extending the runway to 3km. The airport was inspected by the Ministry of Aviation and AAI. The Director General of Civil Aviation recently issued a licence to run the airport.