[Assam] PM’s visit boosts importance of Leelabari airport (The Assam Tribune,14.02.2008)

[Buljit Buragohain]

PM’s visit boosts importance of Leelabari airport
>From Our Correspondent
 NORTH LAKHIMPUR, Feb 13 – Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh’s arrival at North Lakhimpur’s Leelabari airport en-route to his recent visit to the neighbouring Arunachal Pradesh has greatly boosted the importance of this airport for frequent air services to the rest of the country. The Prime Minister arrived with Indian Air Force’s Boeing aircraft at the Leelabari airport and he was received at the tarmac by the Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, State Water Resources & Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Bharat Narah, deputy commissioner, Lakhimpur, Manish Thakur, superintendent of police, Sayed Ataul Kerim and other high-level government officials.

The Prime Minister’s official aircraft landed at the Leelabari airport as neighbouring Arunachal Pradesh has no airports with facilities of landing of large commercial aircrafts. The hilly location and inhospitable terrain of Arunachal Pradesh does not allow the construction of big airports with long runways there for which Leelabari, located in the plains of Assam, just 10 kms away from the Arunachal border can be a great facilitator for the air travellers of the sub-Himalayan Arunachal Pradesh which has international border with China. 

Earlier also when the Leelabari airport was only a small one and when only a Fokker of the erstwhile Indian Airlines operated daily flights to Kolkata via Dibrugarh, Jorhat, Tezpur and Guwahati, all the high-level officers from Itanagar, ministers and legislators and even the Governors used the Leelabari airport for outside travel by taking the only hour long motor way to the airport in North Lakhimpur. Even in almost all the cities of our country, the airports are located at least one or one and half hours drive away from the main centre or the capital complexes. 

The Leelabari airport can be a gateway to Arunachal Pradesh for the State’s air travellers. The transit visit by the Prime Minister in Leelabari en-route to Itanagar has pertinently enhanced the importance of this airport. The large runway, night landing facility and a state of the art passenger terminal at the Leelabari airport can easily operate direct flights to Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore etc for Arunachal Pradesh as well as for the people of Lakhimpur, Dhemaji and east Sonitpur districts.
  
(The Assam Tribune,14.02.2008)



       
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