A day after Haryana Chief Minister Manohar lal Khattar shot off a strong-worded letter to his Punjab counterpart objecting the naming of International Airport at Chandigarh as Mohali International Airport, the five-time Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal on Friday justified the same asserting that “it is built on land in Mohali”.
“It is justified to name International Airport as ‘Mohali International Airport’ because it is built on land in Mohali,” he said, while talking to the media on the sidelines of an event in ludhiana.
He went on to add, “There is complete justification for naming it as Mohali International Airport and no questions should be raised on it. The State Government has been taking this stand continuously and there is no change in its stand.”
As the much-anticipated first “international” flight took off from Chandigarh International Airport on Thursday, the long-standing dispute between the two partner States over the name of the airport too revived.
The airport is managed by a joint venture entity, Chandigarh International Airport limited (CHIAl), in which the Airports Authority of India (AAI) has the majority stake of 51 per cent, and Punjab and Haryana are equal partners with 24.5 per cent each.
Officially, it is called the ‘Chandigarh International Airport’. But, the Punjab Government referred to it as ‘Mohali International Airport’ in its advertisements and hoardings as the land as such falls in Mohali (SAS Nagar).
Haryana, an equal partner in the project, took offence and Chief Minister Khattar had written a terse letter to Badal objecting to the “misleading advertisement campaign”.
“I am deeply anguished by the advertisements... This is factually incorrect. The fact is that the nomenclature of this airport has not yet been decided by the Government of India,” he wrote, urging Badal to look into the matter and take “remedial action”.
Union Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju, who was present at the Sharjah flight launch, said that the Centre has received several requests to name the airport after Shaheed Bhagat Singh. “We are considering it. But it is a long process,” he said, adding that the people of this region should not have any problem if it is called Chandigarh International Airport.