BJD member Kishore Mohanty on Monday demanded in the Assembly that the State Government take requisite steps to ensure normal flying of aircrafts to and from the Jharsguguda airport at the earliest.
Raising the issue during Zero Hour, Mohanty said that aircrafts have stopped flying to and from the Jharsguda airport for the last four days. Authorities are taking plea of low visibility and, thus, the airport is likely to be closed.
“The Jharsuguda airport is the second airport of the State on which people of western Odisha depend to move to Bhubaneswar and other cities in the country. If it is closed, people would suffer a lot,” he said.
He said that the Union Government has not put the Instrumental Landing System (ILS) at the airport for which visibility problem persists. “While the airport was inaugurated by the Prime Minister under the UDAN scheme, we had demanded for use of ILS system as the airport is located in the midst of a hilly terrain. But the Centre is yet to put the system,” lamented Mohanty.
Stating that 25 other airports set up under the UDAN scheme are now smoothly functioning at different places in the country, Mohanty urged the Speaker to issue a direction so that the airport can be saved from the Central negligence.
To this, Speaker Surjya Narayan Patro directed the concerned department to take note of Mohanty’s demand.