From Saurav Bora
JENGJAL (West Garo Hills): Almost ten years after it was inaugurated, the Baljek Airport still remains a non-starter. Worse still, no one knows if at all the Rs 12.52 crore facility will ever see the light of day.
“A team from the Airports Authority of India had come here a couple of months back to do a survey. They had inspected the site and that’s all we know,” said a tad confused BSF jawan at the airport when asked about the prospect of an aircraft ever landing again since the 19-seater Dornier aircraft carrying President Pratibha Patil hit the tarmac during its inauguration in October 2008.
A first-timer to the airport, located about 32km from Tura, will certainly be greeted by “mixed images” of anything but an airport.
Be it the 3,300-feet runway surrounded by wild vegetation, a herd of cattle grazing in the open spaces, clothes left to dry by BSF personnel using it as a barrack, worn-out lavatories and torn roof panels of the main structure, the facility is still in a shambles.
Besides, the main building
does not have the airport’s name on top even as a torn AAI hoarding lies unattended in a corner behind. What remains are two doors with the arrival and departure name plates above them.
Militants belonging to LAEF and UALA had reportedly taken shelter on premises for seven months at the airport a couple of years back.
The Shillong Times had in November, 2016 reported its condition and things have probably turned worse since.
About 60 jawans of the 93 BSF Battalion are currently manning the facility and guarding it round the clock. With just a few days to go for Republic Day, they were extra cautious on Saturday.
“We cannot let you inside the building. You can take pictures only from outside,” was what a jawan told this correspondent.
Earlier, the guard at the main gate had allowed entry only after checking the credentials and getting a confirmation from his higher-up through his walkie-talkie.
The UDP-NCP led government was in power at the time of its inauguration. Nothing seemed to move after the Congress-led MUA government took over.
Former MLA and a BJP ticket aspirant for next month’s Assembly election from South Tura constituency, Billykid Sangma, who was there during the inauguration, said the people of Garo Hills had high hopes on that day.
“Not just easy access to Guwahati or New Delhi, a functional Baljek Airport would have facilitated development here. But that has not happened. What’s sad is that Conrad Sangma was in the ministry then and neither he nor his father (P.A. Sangma) could convince the Centre that time. We need someone from the state in Delhi to push for it now,” Billykid said.
Lack of maintenance apart, the government’s callous approach in ‘outsourcing’ the complex to BSF and Meghalaya police personnel has also left many bewildered here.
“It seems we are losing out on a big opportunity. Already, a few more crores would have to be spent to bring the airport back to its original shape,” the former MLA said.
The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) had in 2010 even pulled up the state government for not utilising the airport saying that the cost of upgrade would further increase owing to depreciation of assets.
The district administration had in 2015 acquired 58 acres for the expansion of the airport with a budget of around Rs 2.59 crore and handed it over to the transport department.
“While there were issues related to land acquisition process in the past, things would have moved faster had the government compensated the landowners then,” said a resident of Tura.
The Centre is also planning to revive 46 under-served and unserved airports and airstrips in the North East, including Baljek, under the novel regional connectivity scheme.
In August last year, the Union government said it would connect the airport with the rest of the region under the phase II of the Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik (UDAN) scheme