I have been working on a nice long article on Mysore Airport and will be posting it shortly. This Airport has been in the news for long and mostly for the wrong reasons. The Airport is a piece of land that has a “dirt strip” and hosting the N.C.C gliding and microlight training presently. Yours truly used to be one of those “flight cadets” in the early 1980’s and flew more than 800 glider flights over a period of three years.
The latest news was about a delay in handing over the additional tracts of land to the Airport Authority of India (AAI) by the State Government. There was a contentious 20 acre piece of land that had not been acquired as the land owners had gone to court on the issue. That small piece was holding up the hand over from the KIADB to the AAI.
The local Member of Parliament (MP) convened a meeting of the Deputy Commissioner (DC) for Mysore and the KIADB (Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board) the nodal agency for acquisition of additional land. The meeting was at noon, today, the 13th of February 2006. So, this article is just hot off the press. The MP has asked the DC to hand over the acquired and uncontested tract of land measuring around 155 acres to the AAI to start the work. The remaining 20 acres or so may be negotiated in due course of time. That is a good solution and ensures that no more delays plague this project, touch wood (!).
The works will now start sometime in April this year and is likely to take 18 months to complete. I will be blogging about the details of the development of this Airport as the project progresses.
There’s one more tidbit of news about Airports in Karnataka. The new Chief Minister of the State has announced today that each district will have an Airport in the State. Looking at some of his early statements since he assumed office last week, he seems to be a man on a mission. He is a young chap, in his mid forties and that may work in his favor in terms of energy and ideas. Let’s hope he can walk the talk. This kind of development is a welcome one for the State and indeed for the country.
