Darbhanga, May 14 (PTI) Bihar CM Samrat Choudhary on Thursday said he would approach Prime Minister Narendra Modi to request that the Darbhanga airport be named after the renowned 15th-century poet Vidyapati, who wrote mostly in Maithili but is said to have influenced literature in Odia and Bengali as well.
Choudhary made the statement in the north Bihar town on the sidelines of a function organised for handing over of the airport’s security arrangements to the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF).
CISF DG Praveer Ranjan, who flew down to Darbhanga on the occasion, was presented with an emblem of the central armed police force, along with a symbolic cardboard key to the airport, by the chief minister.
Choudhary, who holds the civil aviation portfolio, said, “Next week, a meeting of the department is scheduled with Union government officials. I will place a request before PM Modi for naming the Darbhanga airport after Baba Vidyapati”.
Notably, Vidyapati, who was born in the adjoining Madhubani district, was also known to have composed works in Sanskrit, Prakrit and Apabhramsh, besides having intervened in the tumultuous politics of his time, when the kingdom of Mithila got raided by Turkish invaders, who were, in turn, defeated with the help of the Jaunpur Sultanate.
The airport at Darbhanga, developed under the UDAN scheme of the Centre, has been operational since 2021.
Choudhary said his government would try to ensure that the proposed airports at Bhagalpur and Begusarai became functional at the earliest and envisaged “a 10-fold increase in Bihar’s air connectivity in the next five years”.
“In the year 2005-06, until the NDA took over, Bihar had only about 2.5 lakh air passengers per year. The number has since grown to 50 lakh, and in the next five years, we hope it to rise further and reach up to four to five crore per year,” said the senior BJP leader.
“Our aim is to bring air connectivity to every district, be it in the form of a heliport, an airstrip or a full-fledged airport,” he said. PTI NAC SOM
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