The North Eastern Council (NEC), the nodal agency for socio-economic development of the North-Eastern states, has come up with a “blue print” for civil aviation “strategy” in North-East.
Addressing the 60th plenary meeting of the Council, its chairman and minister of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), BK Handique, said “the blue print” of a new civil aviation strategy for North-East has been submitted to the civil aviation ministry.
“My basic thrust is to concentrate to make operational all 22 airports in the area having appropriate capacity aircrafts and have trained manpower for all branches of aviation,” Hnadique added.
He said as per the blue print, Guwahati airport will be made a hub by setting up of hangars. He also said that a civil aviation training institute for North-Eastern region will come up at Lilabari airport in the north bank.
Presently, upgradation and operationalisation of airport at Tezu, in Arunachal Pradesh, is underway at a total cost of Rs.79 crore and Alliance Air, a subsidiary of Air India, is already in an agreement with NEC since 2002 for operating air service in the region.
The centre has already planned about 12 new airports, in addition to the existing 11, in the region to improve air connectivity.
Handique further formed that Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has been commissioned by NEC to study the region’s tourism sector and suggest inter-alia regional tourism circuits that can be developed.
He said that to facilitate the evacuation of power from the upcoming 726 MW ONGC’s Palatana power project in south Tripura, three transmission projects of Rs.96.86 crore have been sanctioned in the state of Tripura. Besides, a transmission project amounting to Rs.127.00 crore for the state of Meghalaya to is in the process for sanction, he added.
“The NEC and Power Grid Corporation (PGCL) had jointly collaborated to prepare detailed project reports (DPRs) for transmission, sub-transmission and distribution of power in North-Eastern Region in 2009. The ministry of power is now in discussion with World Bank (WB) for a World Bank loan for implementing this project in the region. The World Bank Team is visiting the North-Eastern states in this regard,” he said.
