Nagpur: The much touted $100 million aircraft maintenance repair and overhaul (MRO) depot by Boeing in Mihan is finally expected to be ready this month. Praful Patel, who was the civil aviation minister in UPA-I, had announced this American aircraft-maker's plans to set up a MRO in Mihan-SEZ in 2006. This was part of the set-off commitment for an order for 68 planes placed by Air India.
The project has faced several ups and downs since then. Under the latest arrangement finalized in 2011, Boeing will only be building the MRO and handing it over to Air India to run the operations. Now a proposal to extend the letter of permission (LOP) for the project by another year is being put up before the ministry of commerce, which will take up the matter on September 18. The draft proposal by Air India mentions that almost 94% of construction work is over and the MRO will be completely built by September 2014.
Though there is a catch in it. For the MRO to be operational, it needs to be linked with the airport by a 1.8km taxiway. Work on the taxiway has been frequently stopped by various groups of project affected persons.
10/09/14 Shishir Arya/Times of India
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The project has faced several ups and downs since then. Under the latest arrangement finalized in 2011, Boeing will only be building the MRO and handing it over to Air India to run the operations. Now a proposal to extend the letter of permission (LOP) for the project by another year is being put up before the ministry of commerce, which will take up the matter on September 18. The draft proposal by Air India mentions that almost 94% of construction work is over and the MRO will be completely built by September 2014.
Though there is a catch in it. For the MRO to be operational, it needs to be linked with the airport by a 1.8km taxiway. Work on the taxiway has been frequently stopped by various groups of project affected persons.
10/09/14 Shishir Arya/Times of India
