Tuesday, January 22, 2019

Arunachal villagers volunteer to repair aircraft landing strip for the Indian Air Force

The Indian Air Force (IAF) takes up the repairs of the Vijayanagar Advance Landing Ground (ALG) situated in Changlang district of Arunachal Pradesh on the border of Myanmar. This ALG is very critical to the people of the area in the absence of any motorable roads. This ALG has been closed to the fixed wing aircraft since 2016.

After getting approval from the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) in June 2009, the IAF embarked on an ambitious reconstruction plan to upgrade the existing eight ALGs, including infrastructure development at certain air-bases in Eastern Air Command’s (EAC) area of responsibility.
The ALGs for upgradation include Tuting, Mechuka, Along, Tawang, Ziro, Pasighat, Walong and Vijaynagar in Arunachal Pradesh. The outlay plan for the upgradation of ALGs alone is nearly Rs. 1,000 Crore.

Since it takes around 10 days to reach isolated Vijaynagar on foot through dense jungles, both the labour and the material will be airlifted. According to the IAF the place is not connected with any motorable road, and the ALG has not been fit for operations by fixed-wing aircraft since 2016.

“All the material and labourers have to be airlifted to Vijayanagar. The repair work involves cleaning of runway surface on which grass and moss had accumulated due to non-utilisation of the surface over a long duration. This task required a large number of people as it is manpower oriented.”
For the first time, people from 11 nearby villages from the local area of Vijayanagar came forward voluntarily help Air Force authorities to undertake this task by carrying out shramdaan.
22/01/19 Financial Express


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