Tripura CM holds meeting with AAI officials to operationalise defunct airport

Agartala, May 27 (IANS) Chief Minister Manik Saha on Tuesday chaired a meeting with the senior officials of the Airport Authority of India (AAI) on the operationalisation of the defunct airport at Kailashahar in northern Tripura’s Unakoti district.

An official of the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) said the Chief Minister, during his recent visit to New Delhi, met Union DoNER (Development of North Eastern Region) Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and requested him to speed up the revival of the Kailashahar Airport.

He had also written a letter to the DoNER Ministry and Union Civil Aviation Minister Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu on the matter. The CMO official said that in response to the Chief Minister’s request, an official team of the Airport Authority of India visited the Kailashahar Airport on Sunday to conduct an on-the-spot survey and on Tuesday met the Chief Minister.

The AAI officials apprised the Chief Minister in detail about the defunct Kailashahar airport. Tripura government, for the past many years, has been demanding to operationalise the defunct Kailashahar and Khowai airports.

The Chief Minister earlier said that he has requested the Central government to start international flight services from the MBB airport at the earliest. He highlighted that MBB Airport is one of the most beautiful airports in the northeast, with excellent modern infrastructure.

“Several flights are currently operating with most of the important cities in the country, and more would be added in the coming days. There were discussions about initially starting international flights to Chittagong in Bangladesh, but given the current situation in the neighbouring country, that plan is on hold,” he added.

Tripura Transport and Tourism Minister Sushanta Chowdhury earlier said that it was decided that SpiceJet would operate flights on the Agartala-Chittagong route, and accordingly, the Tripura government had decided to provide Rs 15 crore to the AAI.

He had said that the state government paid Rs 3.85 crore to the AAI as three months’ advance in December 2022, besides providing 25 police personnel to the Bureau of Immigration under the Ministry of Home Affairs.

According to historian and writer Pannalal Roy, the land for the Agartala, Kailashahar and various other (now abandoned) airports in Tripura had been donated by the erstwhile Tripura kings.

"During the Second World War, King Bir Bikram supported and helped the Allied powers, especially Great Britain. He deployed a contingent of the Tripura Army to assist Great Britain. During that time, Agartala, Kailashahar and other airports were built to facilitate the Allied powers," Roy, who authored many books on Tripura's royal history, told IANS.

He said that in 1943, Japanese fighter planes twice bombarded Agartala airport.

--IANS

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