No IAF nod yet for Mohali airport

Chandigarh: Work on the proposed international airport at Mohali has failed to take off without the mandatory clearance by the Indian Air Force (IAF). Even though the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has already accorded in-principle approval and issued a No Objection Certificate (NOC) for the project, the IAF has not yet issued working permission or NOC, which is mandatory to be obtained before commencement of work at defence airports.
The delay in the project was evident from the fact that it is still in the planning stage, even almost three years after it was conceptualised in January 2008.
Confirming this in reply to an RTI query filed by this correspondent, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) General Manager (Planning), I N Murthy, said the MoD nod was obtained in January 2008, but the IAF nod is still awaited.
Since the existing Chandigarh domestic airport, which is a defence airport, is to be upgraded as an international airport on the land acquired adjacent to it, the work cannot take off without prior permission of the IAF.
17/09/10 Nitin Jain/Indian Express

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Categories: airports Sep 2010, New Sep 2010