Air traffic to and from Jammu has increased manifold. For many years now it is felt that the Jammu civilian airport is insufficient to handle the incoming flights. The need of expansion of the existing airport has been felt for many years but there had been a long pending dispute between the Ministry of Defence and the State Revenue Department. The land that was needed for expansion is in the possession of the Army and the Army was unwilling to hand it over to the Airport Authority of India for many reasons. Somehow that a compromise formula was arrived at but actual handing over of the land to the AAI is still nowhere in sight. The date for completion of the 75 crore project originally scheduled for September 2015 has been extended to December 2015.
There has been big increase in air traffic and more aircrafts would land if there were the required conveniences. Completion of the work on expanded airport was owing, first to floods in Kashmir and then the Assembly elections in J&K. The frequent presence of VIPs at the airport also caused hindrance in the speedy completion of the work.
We would like to appeal to the Defence Ministry that there has already been a long delay in handing over the land to the AAI and now it has got stuck up with 27 kanals. The concerned authorities at the level of the Army and the Revenue Department would do well to resolve the bottleneck and let the AAI undertake the prestigious work of expanding Jammu airport without any obstruction.
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