Taking up the issue of discontinuation of lone flight that connects ludhiana to Delhi, local Congress MP Ravneet Singh Bittu on Sunday wrote to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding its resumption.

Besides Modi, ludhiana MP has also written to Union Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju Pusapati. He has asked them to resume the ludhiana to New Delhi flight, that was discontinued in May this year.

Bittu, in his letter, said that ludhiana city is known as industrial capital of Punjab. “The city with thousands of medium and small scale industries is an industrial hub in north India. In July 2009, international finance corporation (IFC) had ranked ludhiana as the easiest location to do business in India. PHD Chamber of commerce and industry again endorsed the fact,” pointed Bittu.

He added that the industry has grown leaps and bounds in the illustrious city, but “there still remains numerous shortcomings with respect to flight connectivity with other cities”.

“It is ironic that a city which as per World Bank (WB) report titled Doing Business in India 2009 states that ludhiana is the most adept place to carry out business transactions, does not even have direct flight connectivity with the national capital,” he said.

He said, till recently, only a single flight on Sunday, Monday and Wednesday was serving the people of ludhiana. “Though the required equipment or infrastructure to run more flights has been installed or created at the airport in last few years, instead of adding more flights the Air India has decided to discontinue its existing services,” said Bittu.

He demanded that regular daily flight, preferably in the morning, from New Delhi to the Sahnewal Airport (ludhiana) be resumed in public interest.