india

Updated: Jun 26, 2019 08:48 IST

Ghaziabad

Regional flights from the new civil terminal near the Hindon airbase are likely to begin operations from first week of August. District administration officials in Ghaziabad said Hubli is likely to be the first among the eight proposed destinations which will connected to Ghaziabad.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had inaugurated the terminal on March 8 but operations are yet to begin. Earlier, the officials had estimated that the flights may start in June but the operations got delayed. The civil terminal at Sikandarpur was constructed as part of the regional connectivity scheme under which the runway of the nearby Hindon airbase will be used for operation of civilian flights.

“During a meeting with the Airports Authority of India (AAI) officials we were told that flight operations are likely to begin in the first week of August to Hubli. There have been certain issues which have delayed the commencement of operations. Further, an in-principle approval was also given to the proposed route to Lucknow,” said Ritu Maheshwari, district magistrate, Ghaziabad.

The Ghaziabad administration had proposed Lucknow as one of the destinations as it is the state capital and popular among passengers from western UP.

“There was another proposal for getting the land at Sikandarpur on permanent basis. There has been no decision on it as yet and the proposal would take more time,” she added.

The land at Sikandarpur which was used for construction of the civil terminal is taken on lease from farmers. Earlier, the state government had sought a proposal for taking up the land on permanently. The district administration later prepared a proposal accordingly and sent it to the UP government and AAI.

The new civil terminal is proposed to operate flights to eight routes, including Nasik, Pithoragarh, Kannur, Hubli, Faizabad, Shimla, Jamnagar and Kalaburgi.

To allow flights during the evening hours, the administration has recently sent a Rs 4.5-crore proposal to the UP civil aviation department for fencing the runway. This was done as the airbase area has presence of hundreds of Nilgai (Boselaphus tragocamelus) which could hamper operation of flights.