SHILLONG, Aug 11: Shillong Lok Sabha member, Ricky AJ Syngkon recently called on Union Minister for Civil Aviation, K Ram Mohan Naidu to take stock of the proposed expansion of the Shillong Airport at Umroi.
The VPP MP had earlier sought the Centre’s intervention to operate the Shillong Airport to its optimum capacity.
Syngkon’s meeting with the Minister for Civil Aviation was a follow-up of a letter he had sent earlier on the Shillong Airport and also to apprise the latter of the cancellation of the Shillong-Silchar and Shillong-Agartala flights despite having a good number of passengers.
In his letter, Syngkon had highlighted that Shillong Airport has been in existence since the 1970s and is the only airport that is functional in the state and more or less consistent in its operation after the installation of the instrument landing system (ILS) around 2019.
He underscored that land measuring around 224 acres was acquired almost 15 years ago for extension of the runway at the cost of prime agricultural land, displacement of hundreds of villagers and loss of livelihood, dismantling of school buildings, houses and churches etc., all for the sake of development and that the state government has spent crores of rupees on land acquisition and compensation.
Stating that by now the Shillong Airport should have been an international airport, Syngkon said that the airport has not taken off which is baffling to the people of the state considering the potential of the airport to contribute towards economic uplift of the state especially since Meghalaya is considered as one of the top tourist destinations for both domestic and foreign tourists.
In his maiden speech in the Lok Sabha last month, Syngkon had lamented the lack of connectivity in Meghalaya to promote its vast tourism potential. “Shillong has an airport but big planes cannot land in this airport,” he said, urging the Centre to expand and modernise it.
