SHILLONG: The government, which is planning to make the Umroi airport fully functional with 50-seater ATR services, will have to spend Rs 7,000 crore to remove obstacles (hills) to enable landing of bigger aircraft.
The obstacles in Clusters I, II and III will cost the state exchequer dearly.
In the recent order, the High Court of Meghalaya expressed hope that the ATR services will be able to connect Shillong to metros as the state government agreed to remove the obstacle in Clusters II and III as it involves less cost.
However, the cost is huge for the removal of Cluster I, which is a hurdle for landing of Airbus A320 type aircraft.
The silver lining is that according to technical experts, the commercial airlines have been buying ATR 72/600 aircraft in large numbers and after the fully functional Instrument Landing System (ILS), the short/medium haul aircraft that
is ATR 72/Q400 type of aircraft can easily land at the Umroi airport.
The ILS will also help to have increased connectivity of Shillong to metro cities of India.
An official source said while the government will ensure proper functioning of the Umroi airport, in the long run, it will not be able to spend Rs 7,000 crore for the removal of obstacles in Cluster 1and hence it would be ideal for the government to search for an alternate site so that bigger aircraft can land.