3 years on, Mohali International Airport project yet to take off

Mohali: Even three years after an international airport was formally conceptualised in Mohali, no work has taken place yet. However, an energetic blame game has begun with the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and Indian Air Force (IAF) criticising each other for the inordinate delay in the much-awaited project’s take-off.
While AAI has to execute the work to construct the civil international airport terminal building, IAF has to accord the mandatory working permission and No Objection Certificate (NOC) for undertaking the work. Since the international airport has to come up along the existing Chandigarh domestic airport, which being a defence airport is under absolute control of the IAF, the working permission and NOC from IAF is mandatory for construction of buildings or erection of any structure in and around the defence airfields.
Information procured by this correspondent under the RTI Act has exposed a lack of coordination between the two Central agencies and their indifferent attitude towards the creation of the much-needed facility for this region.
With no work being done since 2008 except for the construction of a boundary wall around over 305 acres of land earmarked for the airport, the project is still in the planning stage and a deadline is yet to be fixed for the start or completion of work.
12/01/11 Nitin Jain/Express India

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Categories: Airports Jan 2011, New Jan 2011