Bhawanipatna: A four-member team headed by joint secretary of the ministry of civil aviation Usha Padhi visited the Utkela airstrip in Kalahandi district on Monday to review the infrastructure in place there.
Utkela is among the airports that have been listed under the Ude Desh Ka Am Nagarik (Udan) scheme - a regional airport development and regional connectivity scheme of the Centre -with the objective of making air travel affordable and getting more people to fly.
If things go to plan, the airport can be operational with daily flights to Bhubaneshwar and Raipur in September by private air service provider Air Odisha.
The team, which included managing director of the Airports Authority of India Vineet Gulati and headed by the joint secretary of the ministry of civil aviation Usha Padhi, landed at the air field in Utkela and held a review meeting with Kalahandi district collector Anjan Kumar Manik, Kalahandi police superintendent Sandeep Madkar and executive engineer of the public works department Ajit Kumar Babu.
Padhi expressed satisfaction with the available infrastructure and progress of work at the airfield. Construction of the 918-metre runway has been completed and the airport is now an A-2 category one. Aircraft with 32 seats can now land here.
Padhi laid emphasis on construction of the airport terminal, fuel station, fire tender services and taxi stands.
Utkela airfield is spread over 31 acres. The airport needs another eight acres to make the airfield included under the Udan scheme.
District collector Anjan Kumar Manik said there would be no problems in the acquisition of the eight acres for the airfield.
"The land acquisition process for the airport can be completed by July and the development work for the airport will be taken up after that," the collector said.
Ajit Kumar Babu, executive engineer of the Kalahandi public works department said the state government had Rs 5.25 crore in place for developing the airport.
"Once the land acquisition is complete, we will take up the infrastructure development work and will try to finish it as soon as possible," Babu said.
