Work on Vijayapura airport from January?

VIJAYAPURA: The decades-long wish of the people of Vijayapura over having an airport will soon be realised, with the ground-breaking ceremony being scheduled for January. The state government had given administrative sanction of Rs 220 crore in July and floated a tender for works worth Rs 90 crore.
People are putting pressure on the government to expedite the tender process so that the airport becomes operational in 2021.
Vijaykumar Halkude, who was an assistant executive engineer of PWD in 2009, recalled that 727acre land was identified at Buranpur, and B S Yediyurappa, who was the chief minister then too, had done bhoomi puja, . “However, a Chennai-based company which had a contract for constructing the airport backed out of the project citing the land is not flat. It had also demanded additional land of 1,000acre for a township on build-operate-transfer basis. But the government had rejected the demand,” he added.
Dr L H Bidari, convener of Airport Horata Samiti (Vijayapura), said that he has information that tender is already open and everything is finalised. “This time, there will be no scope for confusion as there are separate tenders for runway and building,” he added.
Samiti member Raju Gachhinamath said that this time, elected representatives, cutting across their party lines, are working together to have the airport here. “While Congress MLA M B Patil initiated the tender process, deputy CM Govind Karjol has given a shape to the initiative. We will meet Yediyurappa, Karjol and other elected representatives this week to finalise a date in January to start the construction work. Meanwhile, we have got an assurance from the officials that they will ensure completion of 80% works by May,” he shared.