ROURKELA: The state government has intensified efforts for total takeover of Rourkela airport by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) from the ownership of RSP of SAIL and upgrade it for code 4C operation to operate big body aircraft.
Last week, a high-level meeting of top government officials and SAIL authorities on expansion of the Rourkela airport was held at Bhubaneswar. Official sources said expeditious expansion of both the RSP and Rourkela airport were discussed at the meeting. The house insisted on removal of land hurdles and other bottlenecks for these two key projects of Rourkela.
Held on last Friday, the meeting was attended by Union Steel secretary Sandeep Poundrik, joint secretary Abhijit Narendra, acting SAIL chairman KK Singh, RSP director-in-charge Alok Verma and executive director (HR) Tarun Mishra along with Odisha chief secretary Anu Garg, development commissioner DK Singh and additional chief secretary of Industries department Hemant Sharma.
Rourkela airport in its present form is spread over around 140 acres of leasehold land and carries commercial licence for code 2C operation to run ATR-72 type aircraft. In a letter to the collector in March, the RSP had showed willingness to transfer the airport to AAI and claimed compensatory cost.
A differential global position system (DGPS) survey for expansion of the airport was conducted recently. Sources privy with the expansion plan said the new airport boundary would be in shape of a cricket bat with the bottom half starting near Chhend Colony and continuing till half of the Sector 17 cricket field in the east in the shape of a bat handle.
The length of the boundary from east to west would be around 4.6 km, while the width of the airport from south to north would be around 300 metre, further narrowing down to around 70 metre towards Sector 17 side.
RSP sources said about 1,500 quarters and other structures including the Delhi Public School, Sector 15 police station and four religious places of worships in Sectors 13, 14, 15 and 17 would be demolished as per the expansion plan and around 25,000 tress are estimated to be felled.
An additional 278 acres of RSP and 44 acres of private land are required for expansion of Rourkela. Sundargarh collector Subhankar Mohapatra said the valuation of the existing airport has been completed. After handing it over to AAI, the government would take further decision.
He said in the next phase, valuation of RSP land and structures required for the expansion would be taken up for handing over additional land to the AAI.