Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Thursday cancelled his proposed visit to New Delhi to participate in the swearing-in ceremony of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for unavoidable reasons.
The Chief Minister, who left for Vijayawada on Thursday morning to attend the swearing-in ceremony of AP Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, was scheduled to leave for New Delhi at 2 pm. However, the Civil Aviation Ministry imposed restrictions on landing and takeoff of flights at Indira Gandhi International Airport from around 3.30 pm till the closure of the Prime Minister’s swearing-in ceremony.
The Delhi Air Traffic Control issued the NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) barring unscheduled flights in national capital and its subsidiary airports within 300 km range. “No flight is permitted to take off/land at Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi and subsidiary airports within 300 km zone of Delhi,” the notice said.
Scheduled flights by scheduled operators, IAF, BSF and other flights, army, aviation helicopter flights, state-owned aircraft/helicopters flying the governor or the Chief Minister within the State are exempted from the restrictions. Since the Chief Minister and his AP counterpart Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy were expected to fly in a chartered flight which came under the unscheduled flights category, the restrictions became applicable and hence they had to cancel their visit.
