Shillong, July 15: The Meghalaya High Court has ordered expeditious steps by relevant authorities to speed up the Shillong Airport expansion project.
The high court direction to Ministry of Defence (MoD), state government, Airport Authority of India (AAI) and Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) came following examination of a report submitted by AAI on the project.
“On examination of this report, we find that now only the essential preliminary ground work which was required to be made for expansion and development of the Shillong Airport has been done,” the court said in its order after hearing a PIL on the matter on Tuesday.
“From now, a substantial amount of work is required to be done at appreciable pace to make the project operational in the near future,” the court said asking the relevant authorities to “apply necessary thrust for the project to become operational”.
The division bench comprising chief justice IP Mukerji and justice W Diengdoh also directed the note prepared by the state government on the project be made an annexure to an affidavit to be submitted to the court by July 18.
On scrutiny of the note, the court has noted that 22 acres of land are required for the project, with 10.30 acres to be acquired from the Defence authorities.
The state government has approved purchase of 11.75 acres of land for Rs 72.18 crore by entering the sale agreements with individual land owners. The land is expected to be acquired by July this year.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Defence has accorded sanction for the state to work on 10.30 acres of military land at Umroi Military Station, Shillong on an agreement between itself and the state for transfer of land of equal value by the state to the ministry.
According to a draft master plan, runway 4 (RWY 4) would be extended by 571 metres taking its total length to 2,400 metres.
On completion of this extension of RWY 4, landing operation of aircraft would be from the runway 22 (RWY 22) and their take-off from RWY 4.
During the hearing, the Deputy Solicitor General of India Dr Mozika submitted that the tender for carrying out construction, renovation and alteration of the infrastructure of the airport would be granted by AAI to a contractor.
Before that the land has to be handed over to AAI from the state and defence authorities and necessary environmental clearance obtained from relevant authorities.
Dr Mozika also submitted that his client, AAI, would also have to remove some impediments to aircraft operation caused by the presence of mounds, trees etc., along the flight path to the airport.
The court has made the application returnable on August 12 to review the progress of the work.
