The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has come forward to complete the pending works on the airports in Shimoga and Gulbarga, Minister of State for Civil Aviation G.M. Siddeshwar has said.
The work was suspended owing to differences between the partners of joint venture company Regional Airport-Holdings International (RAHI) Ltd., which bagged the contract in 2008 for executing the projects.
The Ministry of Civil Aviation has requested the State government to handover these projects to the AAI, Mr. Siddeshwar told presspersons after visiting the project site here on Saturday.
According to the terms of the contract, the project was to have been executed on built, operate and transfer basis. The State government had been urged to terminate the contract with the joint venture company, pay it the amount spent on the projects so far, and handover the work to the AAI. Mr. Siddeshwar said that he had written to Chief Minister Siddaramaiah in this regard.
Other projectsThe AAI was interested in executing the greenfield airport projects in Hassan, Bijapur and Bellary too. “I will soon meet Mr. Siddaramaiah to discuss the issue,” he said.
On the Shimoga airport project, he said work on 1.74-km stretch of the proposed 5.3-km-long runway had been completed. The work on constructing the compound wall had remained incomplete. All works related to the project came to a halt 16 months ago, he said.
The Director-General of Civil Aviation had directed to reduce the height of chimneys of some of the industries in the industrial estate of the Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board located adjacent to the project site to ensure safe operation of flights, he said.
Shimoga MP and former Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa, the former MP B.Y. Raghavendra, Deputy Commissioner Vipul Bansal, Chief Executive Officer of the Shimoga Zilla Panchayat Sasikanth Senthil were present.
