Nitish Kumar inspects construction work at Darbhanga airport, speaks to civil aviation minister

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Wednesday inspected the construction work at the Darbhanga airport and spoke to Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri to weed out the bottlenecks that have delayed the project.

Kumar also spoke to Airports Authority of India (AAI) Chairman Arvind Singh and urged him to expedite construction works. The chief minister said that this is a very important project but it has been facing several problems.

The problems were redressed immediately after Kumar spoke to Puri, an official statement said. Darbhanga is among the airports under the Centre's ambitious UDAN scheme, aimed at improving regional connectivity.

Kumar, who was accompanied by Water Resources Minister Sanjay Kumar Jha, Chief Secretary Deepak Kumar and a host of other officials, was informed by the AAI that 55 per cent of the construction work of the airstrip has been completed.

The chief minister also asked the AAI to widen the taxi track at the airport, besides expeditiously completing the terminal building.

Directing officials to connect the terminal building with a separate road linking National Highway 527B, he suggested that entry and exit should be made from gate number 1 so that the air force base and the airport have separate roads.

The people of Darbhanga and entire north Bihar will benefit once flight operations start from the Darbhanga airport, Kumar said, asserting that Mithilanchal will get an economic boost. The chief minister directed Darbhanga District Magistrate Thiyagrajan SM to regularly supervise construction work of the airport.

The Darbhanga airport is being constructed as a civil enclave, which is part of an Indian Air Force base allocated for civil aviation operations, at Kevti, around six km from Darbhanga town.

(Photo Credit: PTI)