Bhubaneswar, April 28: Your road-trip agony from here to Paradip will be over shortly as Union government-owned Pawan Hans Helicopters Limited plans to fly you to the port town.
Once the service is introduced, it will take 20 to 25 minutes to cover the aerial distance of 82km between the two places.
A senior official of Pawan Hans said on condition of anonymity: "We have given a proposal to the port trust and also to the state government to provide us with the basic infrastructure and security for the operations. Once it is done, we can start the copter service in three to four weeks."
Confirming the development, additional secretary (in-charge of civil aviation) in general administration department, Uddhab Kar, said: "Pawan Hans Helicopters Limited had given a proposal to the port trust following which the latter approached the state government on April 25. On the same day, the chief secretary wrote to the home department and the director general of police to provide security for the proposed helicopter service."
The service will facilitate faster journey between Bhubaneswar and Paradip, a growing industrial belt where a huge petroleum chemicals and petrochemicals investment region (PCPIR) is coming up on an area of 284 sqkm that stretches up to Kendrapara district. The PCPIR project is being developed by the Odisha Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (Idco).
At present, corporate houses such as the Paradip Port Trust, Indian Oil Corporation Limited, Essar Steel, Paradip Phosphates Limited, Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Limited and Goa Carbons are operating from Paradip.
"The helicopter service will definitely help the industries," said Saswat Patnaik, head of project management unit of Idco.
The largest helicopter service company in Asia with 46 choppers in its fleet, Pawan Hans is involved with offshore and onshore oil exploration activities, inter-island transport (Andaman, Nicobar and Lakshadweep islands), onshore air transport in the North East (Sikkim, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram), anti-Naxal operations in Odisha and Maharashtra, transportation for National Thermal Power Corporation, intra-state transport in Bengal, the annual Amarnath Yatra and the bi-annual Kedarnath Yatra.
With Pawan Hans planning its helicopter service between Paradip and Bhubaneswar, Odisha can look forward to more intra-state air service as the private carrier Air Odisha is also planning to launch a service to connect Jeypore, Angul, Jharsuguda and Rourkela towns with Bhubaneswar by the end of May. The company has already purchased an aircraft for this venture.
"Tour operators dealing with niche tourists can also take advantage of the flight facilities once they start operations. It would give tourism a boost in the year of Nabakalebar (change of idols of the Trinity),'' said Srikanta Mishra, a travel planner.
