By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: Absence of the Advance Landing System (ALS), a refueling station and a short runway are some of the major problems hindering the State Government’s plan to bring in airline companies to operate from the Umroi airport.
The State Government is in talks with different private operators to introduce their services from the Umroi airport in wake of the recent developments whereby the current operator, Alliance Air, has threatened to pull out due to non-payment of dues by the North Eastern Council (NEC).
The state’s lone airport could become non-functional from January 1 if a new airline company is not brought in to ferry passengers.
It may be mentioned that the NEC had earlier informed that the agreement with the state-owned Alliance Air had expired on December 31, 2011.
Talking to mediapersons here on Monday, the State Transport Minister AT Mondal said, “Presently, the airport is awaiting the installation of the Advance Landing System (ALS). Moreover, the companies (airline operators) insist that their pilots have been trained with ALS and hence it’s mandatory to have it here.”
Mondal said talks some airline operators were on to introduce their services from Umroi.
Regarding the absence of a refueling station, the minister said that Bharat Petroleum had agreed to set up a station shortly. According to Mondal, the shortness of runway is also a major problem as the present runway can only accommodate smaller flights.
Earlier, the State Government had handed over 192.253 acres of land to the Airport Authority of India (AAI) for the expansion of the airport, but the State Government is waiting for the fund allocation. Reacting to a query on the recent compensation controversy, the Minister clarified that compensation was not paid to the owners of a certain plot of land as they did not want to hand over their land but now the District Administration has been asked to find out the beneficiaries and accordingly pay the compensation. It is learnt that the Deputy Commissioner has sought an additional amount of Rs 11.44 crore to pay compensation to the affected land owners who have been left out due to the steep resistance and non-acceptance of the compensation offered to them during the initial survey.