Jamshedpur to have airport soon:  Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia

Deoghar, July 12: Union civil aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Tuesday said Jharkhand is set to get three more airports, besides 14 new air routes to increase connectivity.

Scindia, who accompanied Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to Jharkhand, said the new airports will come up at Bokaro, Jamshedpur and Dumka.

Earlier in the day, Modi inaugurated the Deoghar airport among other projects.

“Jharkhand will soon have five airports. After Ranchi and Deoghar, we will set up airports in Bokaro, Jamshedpur and Dumka. Also, 14 new air routes will be introduced in the state to boost connectivity,” Scindia said.

The new routes include Dumka-Ranchi, Dumka-Kolkata, Bokaro-Patna, Bokaro-Kolkata, Deoghar-Patna and Deoghar-Kolkata, he said.

The Deoghar airport will soon be connected to Ranchi, Patna and national capital Delhi.

“India had 74 airports in the past 70 years. During the last eight years, 67 new airports have been established taking the total to 141, including heliports and water domes,” Scindia added

Incidentally, former Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das and Jamshedpur MP, Bidyut Baran Mahato along with former union civil aviation minister of state Jayant Sinha had laid the foundation of the airport in January 2019. The Union government had also allocated Rs 100 crore under “Udaan” scheme for the airport.

For this project, 240 acres was acquired by the then state government in September 2019 for phase 1 of the construction. Work came to a grinding halt in January 2020, when the area on which the proposed airport was to come up was declared by the forest department as elephant corridor.

The Chief Minister Hemant Soren praised the Prime Minister Narendra Modi for helping in realising the dream of Deoghar Airport and said, “I believe that laborers play a big role in building a palace. But it is generally seen that after the construction of the palace or house, the people living in it forget the laborers, in the same way this Jharkhand is making its contribution for leading the country not from today but for years. By tearing his chest, iron, coal is providing many minerals to the country. But seems to have been forgotten,” said Soren.

Soren said that if the Centre extends support then the state government can assure that Jharkhand would be amongst leading state in next five-seven years.