Srinagar, April 10: Kargil, the northern-most town in the country, will be on the aviation map soon as a private budget airline has decided to fly there from Jammu and Srinagar.

Kargil town, which is close to the Line of Control, has an airfield used exclusively by the military. Now, SpiceJet will fly 78-seater planes there from Jammu and Srinagar.

State transport minister Qamar Ali Akhoon, who is from Kargil, said: “The private airline will shortly start commercial flights to Kargil and this will go a long way in addressing a long-pending demand of the people there.”

Akhoon said the Union civil aviation ministry gave the go-ahead after favourable reports submitted by teams headed by the director-general of the Airports Authority of India, Bharat Bhushan, and the deputy director, Lalit Gupta. Both visited Kargil district separately last year to inspect facilities at the airbase.

The Kargil airfield, at a height of 3,000 metres, has a runway that is a little longer than 1,800 metres.

M. Raju, the district commissioner, said Kargil has good tourism potential and the move would put the place on the traveller’s map. “The journey from Srinagar or Leh to Kargil takes eight hours or so. The visitors can now reach this place in a short time and we have so much to offer,” he said.

For tourists, getting to Kargil would take an hour from Jammu by flight. From Srinagar, it would be half-an-hour away by plane.

Akhoon said the civil aviation ministry had agreed to his suggestion to form a committee to prepare the flight schedules once trial landings start.

A SpiceJet spokesperson said: “We had discussions with the civil aviation ministry regarding flight operations to Kargil. We are now working on the technical aspects of the routes.” The technical aspects include frequencies of flights and estimated passenger load, the airline sources said.

The decision to fly commercial planes to Kargil has come weeks after the Union road transport and highways ministry gave the go-ahead for two tunnels through Zojila, the pass that connects Kashmir to Ladakh.

This will be the alternative to the Srinagar-Kargil-Leh road, which is 434km long and parts of which are under thick snow during winters.

The absence of an all-weather road had given Pakistan an advantage while launching its intrusions in the winter of 1999. Pakistan had calculated that the Indian Army would not be able to rush in reinforcements to Kargil until the re-opening of the road that was under snow.

Akhoon said the work on the first phase of the tunnel — from Gagangir to Sonamarg — in the Valley would start from August and its tentative cost would be Rs 200 crore per kilometre.

“The date for starting work on the second phase, from Baltal to Mainamarg, shall be announced at the foundation laying ceremony (in August),” he said.

Beacon, a unit of the Border Roads Organisation, will bore the tunnels to make the roads, which will not cut short travel time by much but will offer the all-weather alternative to the Srinagar-Kargil-Leh road.

Brigadier T.P.S. Rawat, the chief engineer of Beacon, said: “The present road passed through unstable and avalanche-prone areas. From Km 80 (near Sonamarg) to Km 114 (Mainamarg), there are 109 avalanche-prone spots. The tunnels will be safe and provide an all-weather road to Ladakh.”