Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to direct the Civil Aviation Ministry to issue site clearance approval and No Objection Certificate (NoC) for the international airport at Bhogapuram, near Visakhapatnam.
Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy has also written to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on the issue.
In the letter written to Mr. Modi, the Chief Minister said that the airport in Visakhapatnam had been playing an important role in the development of the city as a economic and tourist hub, and so the airport should be expanded to operate several civil flights and incubate further growth.
“Since Visakhapatnam is surrounded by hills on three sides, civil flights can take off and land only in one direction. In these conditions, there can be limited movement of 10 flights in an hour. While the present requirement of both civil and military flights are being met, the number of naval and civil flights are expected to increase substantially in the immediate future,”’ said Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy.
Further, the Eastern Naval Command (ENC) had cited many reasons for not shifting the Naval Air Station at INS Dega to Bhogapuram, including long-term disruption and reduction of operational effectiveness on the Eastern seaboard and lack of unidirectional landing/take off. Besides, the bi-directional runway at Bhogapuram makes it useful only for civil aircraft. Hence, there is no other choice except to shift to Bhogapuram, Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy said.
While stating that the Government of Andhra Pradesh had decided to develop a greenfield airport at Bhogapuram in the PPP mode, Mr. Jagan Mohan Reddy said the Union Government had already accorded site clearance approval for setting up the airport, but its validity had expired.
The project had not taken off even after identification of the PPP partner due to non-issuance of site clearance approval and NoC for the proposed airport and several other conditions placed by the Ministry of Civil Aviation to compensate the Airports Authority of India.
