People in this region would have to wait for some more days before the construction of the much-delayed greenfield airport is completed and Kalaburagi is put on the aviation map of India.
The project has been marked by undue delays due to the failure to hand over the initial proposal to a conglomerate of financial companies under the banner, Gulbarga Airport Developers Ltd. (GADL). Even after a memorandum of understanding with GADL was cancelled and the government decided to complete the remaining work through its own agencies, the work is yet to pick up pace.
The State government had, after cancelling the MoU with GADL, entrusted the work, which included the extension of the existing runway to 3200 m, construction of a terminal and other infrastructure, to the Public Works Department. It had also sanctioned ₹ 109.48 crore for completing the work.
According to information available with The Hindu , 25 per cent of runway work has been completed now. Sources said that the task of completing the remaining work will be taken up in phases. In the first phase, the construction of the runway and the terminal and compound wall has been taken up.
The sources said that although the government has fixed February 2018 as time-frame to complete the work in all respects, the authorities have stepped up their efforts to complete the project by December 2017.
Initially, the government had decided to limit the length of the runway to 1,000 m but later extended it to 1,970 m to enable mid-sized aircraft to land and take off. However, on the insistence of the former Union Minister M. Mallikarjun Kharge, the length of the runway was extended to 3,200 m to enable bigger aircraft, including Airbus, to land comfortably and take off. The project also included widening of the runway to 60 m from the existing 45 m.
The sources said that the construction of an apron and isolation bay is also being taken up. At present, Phase I and II works are in progress and tenders for the Phase III work have to be floated. Till the end of March, ₹ 29.23 crore has been spent after the Public Works Department took up the works.
The proposal for the Kalaburagi airport was first made in the early 1980s. The State government acquired 214 acres of land near Biddapur village on Kalaburagi-Afzalpur State Highway in 1983. However, the proposal to establish the airport on the land was given up after the Airports Authority of India (AAI) rejected the site terming it as unsuitable for an airport.
During the S.M. Krishna Government, a decision was taken to shift the site of proposed airport to Srinivas Saradagi village on the outskirts of Kalaburagi city, on the Kalaburagi-Ripponpalli inter-State highway. The then Home Minister M. Mallikarjun Kharge, who also held the additional charge of Infrastructure Development, was responsible for the selection of the new site for the project. The government acquired 571 acres of land for the purpose initially and later it has been extended to 693 acres.
