Centre flip-flops on airport, CM sore

Post News Network

Bhubaneswar, Dec 15: Surprised over exclusion of Bhubaneswar from the list of proposed international airports in the country, Orissa government Monday asked the Centre to respect its own notification.
“The state government is at a loss to understand why the Union government is not able to abide by its own decision of operationalising the International Airport at Bhubaneswar published in the International Airport Notification in Extraordinary Gazette of India November 14, 2013,” Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik wrote in a letter to the Union civil aviation minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju.
He said facilities for immigration clearance, health and quarantine were already available at the airport in Bhubaneswar. “Serious audit objections will also arise for spending public resources on a plan that the Union government conceived, pushed and eventually repudiated. At this juncture, leaving Bhubaneswar out of the list of international airport in the Draft Aviation Poll, is surprising to say the least,” he said. The Airports Authority of India (AAI) and the state government have already spent public money on the construction of an international airport in Bhubaneswar.