Acquire land for Jubbarhatti runway extension, state told

Kuldeep Chauhan

Tribune News Service

Shimla, January 20

To make air travel to the state capital cheaper and commercially sustainable, the Director General Civil Aviation (DGCA) and the Airports Authority of India (AAI) have asked the state government to acquire additional land at the Jubbarhatti airport for extension of the runway to the minimum required length of 1500 m to operate a 40-seater aircraft as per new passengers safety norms.

With this direction, the Department of Tourism and Civil Aviation has planned joint inspection of the land available around the airport located about 30 km from the state capital, officials said. The inspection will be carried out by the revenue officers of Shimla and Solan on January 22.

The Jubbarhatti runway is just 1189-m long and its extension may take a long time due to delays and hassles involved in acquiring private and forest land.

“The runway is capable of landing an aircraft carrying 30 passengers. But on its return journey, the aircraft cannot take off on the 1189-m-long runway by carrying more than 10 passengers,” said Robin Goerge, Additional Director, Department of Tourism and Civil Aviation.

Because of this peculiar problem of landing and takeoff at the Jubbarhatti airport, the air service providers have refused to cut the airfare that has made travel to Shimla from Delhi most expensive as compared to other airports in the Himalayan states.

The state government’s plea for operation of subsidised air flights to Shimla, Gaggal and Bhuntar, as is being done in Ladakh and northeast, have not yielded any results.

The air journey of an hour and 10 minutes from Shimla to Delhi on an average costs Rs 15,000 for one way per passenger, while the Chandigarh-Goa flight costs Rs 13,000 or so. “We cannot carry more passengers as the DGCA and AAI have set up strict norms for safety of passengers,” officials said.

According to sources, the front side of the airport has hardly any scope of extension as it needs a lot of land-filling. “It will incur a lot of cost and will need huge amount of land and concrete to fill up the site to bring it up to the level of the airstrip,” they added.

The land around the Jubbarhatti airport belongs to private individuals and Forest Department and falls in Solan district. “We have planned a joint inspection of revenue officers on January 22. Once we know the exact availability of land there, we will be able to know the scope of expansion of the airstrip,” Robin Goerge said.