MP Captain Brijesh Chowta Raises Mangalore Airport Land Acquisition Issue During Zero Hour In Parliament
Bangalore: Dakshina Kannada MP Captain Brijesh Chowta on Friday raised the issue of the bottlenecks that the Mangalore Airport is facing with regard to land acquisition, which is hampering its safety and expansion.
Drawing the attention of the August House and the Civil Aviation Ministry during the Zero Hour of Parliament, he made a heartfelt appeal to the government to “enable the ‘Udaan’(Hindi for flight) of Mangalore city.
“I seek that our Hon’ble Union Minister through his intervention enables the Udaan of Mangalore – a city which is the embodiment of the idea of “Vikas Bhi Virasat Bhi”,” he said.
“Mlore airport, which is operated by a private operator, has sought additional land to provide a safety area for the runway, from the district administration which has asked the state govt who has written AAI of India and is willing to facilitate the land acquisition process. I have personally met the Secretary for Civil Aviation, who also agreed to this” he said in his speech.
“But this is where it is now stuck – while all agencies in principle and their capacity and spaces say they are willing to make this happen, there hasn’t been any action initiated to facilitate this. The bottleneck is that there is no instruction from the AAI to the private operator or the state govt – the next course of action hasn’t been communicated to any of the agencies involved,” he added.
Stressing on the importance of the said intervention & the impact of a bureaucratic delay on the expansion and safety of the Mangalore airport, he said, “This is the need of the hour; that the Central Aviation Ministry intervenes and facilitates a dialogue between all the agencies and at the earliest makes the land acquisition a reality”.