Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik inaugurated the newly-constructed Malkangiri Airport on Tuesday. The airport became the seventh one in the State. It is situated at Katelguda under Goudaguda panchayat on the outskirts of Malkangiri town.
The airport’s runway is 1,620 meter in length and 30 meter in width.
The CM said, “Air connectivity to Malkangiri will usher in a new era of development, open up avenues of business and tourism and further transform the lives of people in the region.”
In the first phase, nine-sear aircrafts are likely to operate from the airport while larger aircrafts will provide services later.
The airport has been constructed on 233 acres of land at an expenditure of around Rs 70 crore. The authorities of the Biju Patnaik International Airport (BPIA) in Bhubaneswar have provided necessary technical assistance for making the Malkangiri Airport operational.
This is the second significant connectivity project in the district after the Gurupriya bridge, which was inaugurated by the Chief Minister in 2018. The bridge has been providing road connectivity between the cutoff areas of the district (Swabhimana Anchala) and the mainland.