Halwara airport: Issue stuck in MoD

New Delhi: Punjab's dream for an international airport in Ludhiana (Halwara) would take much longer to realise than the state was expecting as the proposal is stuck with the Ministry of Defence (MoD) particularly with the Indian Air Force (IAF).
There are objections from the IAF over Ministry of Civil Aviation's attempt to bring in a private partner along with the public sector Airports Authority of Indian (AAI) to run the airport at Halwara. The proposal for handing over the IAF base airport for converting it into an international airport was to have come up for the clearance from the Union Cabinet yesterday but was dropped following objections regarding the involvement of a private player.
The proposal was to have been cleared at the last meeting of the Union Cabinet also but got shelved following objections from the MoD.
Sources in the MoD said that the last time the proposal was shelved as Defence Minister AK Antony took exception to the fact that Cabinet note which had reached him only a few hours before the Cabinet meeting pointed to public-private partnership to build a civil enclave next to a frontline fighter base.
19/12/06 Girja Shankar Kaura/The Tribune

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