Civil Aviation Ministry responds negatively to Odisha’s request to make Bhubaneswar airport an international airport and is in deadlock with respect to the Jharsuguda airport: article from Sambada
Bhubaneswar, Bhubaneswar- Cuttack- Puri, Bringing International Connectivity, Jharsuguda, Sambalpur-Burla-Jharsuguda September 30th. 2010, 10:43am
My position is that the ministry is most welcome to make Vizag an international airport; but it should not deprive Bhubaneswar the same. Since the above article pokes holes on Bhubaneswar’s claims for international designation and explicitly mentions Vizag, hence my following attemp to compare the two in terms of daily non-stop flight connectivity. I used http://www.cleartrip.com and used the dates of 18th and 26th Novmeber. (This is an initial attempt. If I missed something please let me know.)
| Bhubaneswar | Visakhapatnam | |
| Delhi | FIVE: 5 daily non-stop flights (Indigo – 2, Kinfisher Red -2*, Air India) | TWO: 2 daily non-stop flights (Jet Konnect, Air India) |
| Mumbai | Two: 2 daily non-stop (Kingfisher Red, Air India) | Zero non-stop flights |
| Kolkata | FOUR: 4 daily non-stop flights (Kingfisher Red – 2, Jet Konnect – 2) | ONE: 1 daily non-stop flight (Jet Konnect) |
| Chennai | ONE: 1 daily non-stop flight (Air India) | THREE: 3 daily non-stop flights (Kingfisher Red, Air India, Jet Konnect) |
| Hyderabad | TWO: 2 daily non-stop flights (Indigo) | SIX: 6 daily non-stop flights (Jet Konnect, Spice Jet 2, Kingfisher Red 2, Air India) |
| Bangalore | ONE: 1 daily non-stop (Kingfisher Red) | ZERO: No daily non-stop flight |
| Total metro connectivity | 15 daily non-stop (only three are by Air India; rest are by private airlines) | 12 daily non-stop (only three are by Air India; rest are by private airlines) |
| Others | ? | ? |
| Airlines operating now | Air India, Indigo, Jet Konnect, Kingfisher Red | Air India, Jet Konnect, Kingfisher Red, Spicejet |
* The Kingfisher Delhi-Bhubaneswar flights are canceled for now, in November they show twice a day and in some December dates they show once a day. Its exact schedule is at http://www.flykingfisher.com/Flex/schedules.pdf. There it shows the following:
Delhi (DEL) IT 3346 19:30 21:25 320 0 03 Oct 2010 24 Oct 2010 7 Kingfisher Red Service
Delhi (DEL) IT 3346 20:30 22:40 320 0 31 Oct 2010 22 Mar 2011 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 Kingfisher Red Service
Delhi (DEL) IT 3350 09:10 11:20 320 0 31 Oct 2010 22 Mar 2011 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 Kingfisher Red Service
Bhubaneswar (BBI) IT 3345 17:05 19:00 320 0 03 Oct 2010 24 Oct 2010 7 Kingfisher Red Service
Bhubaneswar (BBI) IT 3345 17:45 19:55 320 0 31 Oct 2010 22 Mar 2011 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 Kingfisher Red Service
Bhubaneswar (BBI) IT 3349 06:30 08:40 320 0 31 Oct 2010 22 Mar 2011 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 Kingfisher Red Service
That is it will have twice daily flights between Bhubaneswar and Delhi.
Some other comparative numbers:
- As per http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=55629 average number of flights operated in a day from Bhubaneswar is 50 and from Vizag is 33.
- As per the world-gazetteer the population of the Bhubaneswar metropolitan area is 1,696,807 and the population of the Vizag metropolitan area is 1,534,162.
On Jharsuguda airport there seems to be a deadlock. It is clear that the center wants 815 acres land and the state is offering only 734 acres.
Why is not the state giving the amount of land the center is asking for? Is there some genuine reason behind it? I don’t know. Perhaps someone who knows can help.
Also is the amount of land that the center is asking an absolute must? Are there other operational airports with less land? (I don’t know.) Ofcourse more land would mean a bigger airport. But is not it possible to use the land the state is giving to make the airport and then pursue the additional land for future expansion.
Update: Just did some search and found that:
- Patna airport covers an area of only 254 acres.
- Varanasi airport covers an area of 582.5 acres.
- Trivandrum airport is a 583 acres campus.
- Tirupati airport: Currently at 293 acres and will grow to 690 acres.
- Dibrugarh airport: 253.96 acres.
- Jaipur airport: 716 acres.
- Tiruchi airport: 702 acres.
- Jammu airport: 88.7 acres. (??)
- Srinagar airport: 52.6 acres. (??)
- Ranchi airport: 526 acres.
Outside India there are some very busy airports that have around 700 acres of land. For example:
- La Guardia Airport in New York is 650 acres. (It is next to a river through.)
- In 2008, 176,373 flights departed LaGuardia. That makes it an average of 483 flights a day.
- Reagan National Airport in Washington DC is 733 acres. (It is also next to a river.)
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October 1st, 2010 at 2:10 am
I think time has come to start a mass movement for this like the IIT movement.All odia’s across the globe should be acknowledged and join hand against this step motherly attitude on Odisha from the UPA Govt in every developmental issues.We should ask all the pro odisha organizations in BBSR and other parts of odisha to protest fiercely for this cause.
Chita sir: Please start a new thread for this as i think this is the key point for odisha’s development.
October 1st, 2010 at 3:07 am
Watch this space. We will protest this soon.
October 1st, 2010 at 4:05 am
AirPort issue can never be as emotive for the people as the issue of higher education institutions like IIT. But, this shows Oriss’s weak or no presence in central policy making. Union Minister’s from Orissa always get portfolios where they can’t do anything special for the state. Even the present CM, when asked to choose a Ministry in the past in NDA regime choose to be the Steel Minister of India just because the legendary Biju Patnaik held this portfolio in the past. If he wanted he could have asked for Railway, Surface Transport or Civil Aviation. These are things of the past but it is a pointer towards the fact that why Orissa has the ugliest and undersized railway stations and tiny airport and poor railway and highway density even according to indian standards. Unfortunately in the two term of UPA at the centre what Orissa has got is a Minister of State for Rural Development and a Minister of State for Chemical and Fertilisers. This is out and out discrimination against Orissa and suggests that things are not likely to change even in the near future.
October 1st, 2010 at 12:04 pm
The international airport in Bhubaneswar and the airport in Jharsuguda is never really going to be an emotive issue for a good part of the population which incidentally is below the poverty line! Having said that I think there is a good scope for the issue to get wide coverage in the media considering that many of the readers will be affected by such a policy decision.
October 2nd, 2010 at 3:01 am
I think the BJD government has not been tactful in dealing with the centre. On top of that there have been many bunglings which have exposed the weaknesses. They neither support the UPA nor the strogest opposition NDA. Instead of capitalising on their popularity in the state, they took a proud stand and are unnecessarily fighting and making enemies with the centre. There is no point bashing the UPA alone because if NDA comes to power the story will remain the same. It is very clearly evident on news channels in the way people like Pyari Mohan and a few others (the so called think tank) spit venom on both BJB and Congress each time they open their mouth on a related issue. How will this help the state ? Is it not right to forge diplomatic relationship with the centre (whichever party) and cleverly get your work done ? What is the point in openly showing giant size inflated egos to the public ? BJD must realise now that it will always remain a state level part and it is best to have good working relationship with the centre, be it UPA or NDA. the underlying animosity will not help Orisaa. The CM must stop listening to the so called ‘think tank’ else he will soon prove that he is in fact a puppet. Sooner or later people will realise that there is no point electing the BJD which can do nothing beyond signing MoUs. It will be a pity if that happens.
October 5th, 2010 at 3:29 am
The State Govt should look beyond industrialisation and focus on issues like public health, urban infrastructure and public transport. It is laughable that a state of the size of Orissa has only about 400 OSRTC buses whereas cities like Hyderabad alone has ten times as much city buses. Cities other than the state capital are just like overgrown villages with absence of city transport. On public health the state is at the bottom and hundreds of people are dying in the backward districts. With all these there is no point gloating about the private investment which takes decades to materialise and Gopalpur, Kalinganagar, vedanta University and Lanjigarh type issues likely to haunt us.
March 11th, 2011 at 2:16 pm
Sir,
can u please post this pointer…
this is an update on Jharsuguda airport
http://indiaaviation.aero/news/airline/37169/59/13-non-operational-airports-of-AAI-to-be-operationalised
March 12th, 2011 at 1:18 am
Really, no new news in that. Center has asked for more land in Jharsuguda and state is not willing and it is stuck at that.
March 13th, 2011 at 10:18 am
Jitu: You should make something like http://futureberhampur.blogspot.com/ for Sambalpur-Jharsuguda area.