It is an airport which has been nearly 12 years in the making. A political fight for credit hence broke out between the Samajwadi Party, the Congress and the BJP as the Kushinagar International Airport in Uttar Pradesh was finally inaugurated by PM Narendra Modi on Wednesday.
Congress leader RPN Singh said the project was approved by the UPA Cabinet at the Centre in 2014 while former chief minister Akhilesh Yadav said his government in UP undertook the plan in 2015. But the BJP said it had expedited the work on the project from 2017 and got it completed.
To put matters in perspective, one needs to go back to 2010. The UP tourism department under the Mayawati government acquired 584 acres in Kushinagar for the proposed airport between March 2010 and April 2011. But no further activity happened there till 2015 as the state could not get any private player on board to build it.
In 2015, the Akhilesh Yadav government realised it would have to return the 584 acres to the original owners by 2016 if work does not start under the project as land acquisition rules put a cap of five years for the same. The state then took the help of Airports Authority of India and appointed RITES Limited for the job.
In 2016, the Akhilesh Yadav government approved Rs 200 crore for the airport construction and released Rs 80 crore to RITES Limited to start the work. The Yogi Adityanath government came to power in March 2017 and released Rs 50 Crore for the airport work and the balance Rs 69 crore in November 2017.
In March 2019, the Yogi government entered into an MoU with AAI for operating the Kushinagar airport and released another Rs 4.45 crore to AAI for clearing obstacles on the airport premises and ensure bulk power supply. In 2020, the Narendra Modi cabinet at the Centre too a big step of approving declaration of the Kushinagar airport as an international airport.
The Yogi Adityanath government released Rs 23 crore this year to acquire more land for the project, which was finally inaugurated by PM Modi on Wednesday.
Akhilesh Yadav, however, took a swipe saying BJP “won’t get to own a plane by just becoming the pilot” and said the “ground for the runway had been prepared by someone else.”
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