Flight operations at Shibpur Airport may begin by December

South Andaman to have brand New Greenfield Airport;

Port Blair, Nov 14: The Lt. Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands tour today interacted with media persons and mentioned that A & N Islands are rapidly progressing on the path of prosperity, growth and development, with plethora of developmental projects at various stages of execution/implementation.

Among major points he said that out of four airports that we have, in Shibpur, Diglipur, for the extension for 3 km plus runway, land allotment has already taken place. He said that revenue land, Forest land and land required for compensatory afforestation have already been allotted. The Lt. Governor said that in this process acquisition of a private land is involved for 20 hac for which process has been initiated but that process is governed by new land acquisition act and it will take time of more than a year. However, he said that the Administration is hopeful that by December under UDAAN scheme first inauguration flight of small aircraft will begin from Shibpur airport. By then the airport will be able handle Dornier equivalent aircrafts.

Regarding Port Blair airport he said that the airport it meets all the requirement of what, an airport should not have. For this the administration has taken up proposal for construction of a brand new Greenfield airport for which three sites have been proposed in South Andaman area. He said that this proposal has moved fairly forward. He said that for Campbell Bay’s airport also a new location is being proposed and in that case also three sites have been proposed.

To promote Heli-tourism, augmentation of helicopter services using the existing helipad and involving service providers will be worked out by the M/o Civil Aviation in consultation with UT Administration. Previously, Expression of Interest was floated by the UT 

Administration and a bidder's conference was organised on 08th June, 2018 at New Delhi. Inter-islands sea-plane transportation and water terminals in different islands are also being considered.

He said that relaxation in RAP regime for facilitating visit of foreign tourists has already been done and  proposal for e-visa/Visa-on-arrival in A&N is under consideration.

He said that the Administration has forwarded a series of proposals to act as a "Gateway to ASEAN/East Asia"and to formulate & institutionalize direct trade with SE Asian countries, so as to economize on both time and expenditure.