Ayodhya: The Maryada Purshottam Shri Ram International Airport in Ayodhya will be completed by 15 December, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath told the media Saturday, after a visit to the currently under-construction airport.
Adding that construction work for the airport was in its last leg, the CM said it will be completed by 15 December and the “date for inauguration will be decided by Prime Minister Narendra Modi”.
“We all know that the airstrip in Ayodhya was very small. After being provided 821-acre land by the state govt, the Airport Authority of India is working to develop the new airport,” Yogi Adityanath said.
Meanwhile, director of the Ayodhya airport has said that a team of the DGCA has inspected the airport site and they are hoping to get a license from the DGCA “soon following which flight operations can start” from the facility.
The announcement by the airport officials came on the day that Adityanath, along with Union Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and Minister of State (MoS) V.K. Singh visited the under-construction airport to inspect its readiness, ahead of the grand opening of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya next month.
“When someone from the country or abroad visits an airport then he/she should get a glimpse of the city’s historic significance. We have tried to implement the same in Ayodhya,” said Scindia, while interacting with the media after the visit.
Earlier in the day, Scindia and Union Jal Shakti minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, along with CM Adityanath, had also visited the Hanuman Garhi temple in Ayodhya to seek blessings ahead of the declaration of assembly poll results in the four states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Telangana Sunday and Mizoram Monday. Scindia and the UP CM then visited the under-construction Ram temple.
The entire city of Ayodhya is in full preparation mode ahead of the opening of the Ram temple. The city administration has also launched the ‘Holy Ayodhya’ app to help devotees visit the temple.
“Any devotee who lands in Ayodhya can check the availability of home stays, hotels and parking, from the airport or railway station itself by logging in on the app,” Ayodhya Development Authority vice chairman Vishal Singh told ThePrint.
Also read: Ram Mandir trust says ‘Rs 900 cr spent, Rs 3,000 cr left’, seeks licence to accept foreign funds
‘Start operations soon’
Following Saturday’s inspection by Scindia and CM Adityanath, airport director Vinod Kumar said, “An inspection by the DGCA has been done and after getting a license, we will start operations of flights soon”.
After receiving an application for license from the airport authority, the DGCA gives an air operator certificate (AOC) or license, after an inspection of the airport.
On Friday, Kumar had told a news agency that a DGCA team had inspected the site two-three days back.
“The runway work is complete, parking bay complete and the building work is in the last phase. Beautification work is going on. The DGCA team left after an inspection two-three days back. We are hoping to get a license soon and we will be able to start operations,” he had said.
Kumar had further said that as of now, India’s largest airline Indigo has given a flight plan to start services for Delhi for all seven days of the week and for three days from Ahmedabad.
“It has first shared a plan for seven days for operations from Delhi and for three days from Ahmedabad. We hope that operation of flights can begin before the pran pratishtha [consecration] of the Ram Lalla idol (in the under-construction Ram temple),” he said
Speaking to ThePrint in June, Rajeev Kulshreshtha, project in-charge, Airport Authority of India (AAI) had said that they would immediately apply for a license for operations once the district administration clears all obstacles around both ends of the runway.
The Ayodhya administration had conducted a survey for identifying the obstacles earlier this year and the District Magistrate Nitish Kumar had told ThePrint that they expected to start the first flight from the airport “in the present calendar year”.
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
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