The issue over civil flight time restrictions and Navy flying hours at the Visakhapatnam Airport might soon be resolved as a new Navy runway has been proposed in the city.
In a meeting with the Eastern Naval Commanding-in-chief Karambir Singh on Monday, Member of Parliament Kambampati Haribabu, MLA Vishnukumar Raju and MLC Madhav have suggested the chief to withdraw curbs on civil flights. The MP team has mentioned the proposed Navy runway to the officials of the Eastern Naval Command. They also informed about the problems and decisions of cancelling flights by certain air companies to the officials.
During the meeting, Karambir said, ” Our intention is not to create problems for the civilians.”
“We have received complaints from the air traffic control that the Navy flights are facing problems due to overlapping. Is there any solution to overcome such problems?”, questioned the Chief.
MP Haribabu replied, ” A new Navy runway would help in avoiding the flight time restrictions at the Visakhapatnam Airport. The new runway can be established in a 34-acre land which is under Visakhapatnam Port Trust. For this, the Port Trust has to hand over the land to the Eastern Naval Command.”
“While the land value is at the cost of Rs 60 crores, efforts are being made to decrease it to Rs 30 crores. As the Minister of Shipping and Water Resource, Nitin Gadkari, would be visiting the city soon, we will discuss the land value with him”, Haribabu said.
Earlier, Eastern Naval Command Chief has assured that mixed operations for civil and military flights can be carried out between 7 pm and 9 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays from November 1. The dedicated time slots for Indian Navy alone would be in the morning from 9:30 am to 12:30 pm from Monday to Friday. Due to this, the Jet Airways to Delhi from Visakhapatnam has been cancelled. MP Haribabu said that it would be feasible if the date of time restrictions implementation would be shifted to April next year and the restriction slot to the evenings from 3 pm to 5 pm.
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