Law Kumar Mishra
Patna, September 21
The newly built Darbhanga airport will have used chairs from Chhattisgarh.
The Airport Authority of India (AAI) would be transporting old and used chairs dumped in Raipur airport. The 70 three-seater chairs would be used in Darbhanga airport.
The chairs were lying unused after the Raipur airport received 500 chairs a couple of years ago. Since the new chairs were replaced, the old ones were lying idle. The chairs are reported to be in good condition.
The AAI had floated a tender to transport the chairs from Raipur to Darbhanga.
Built with a cost of Rs 76 crore, the airport has a capacity to handle 1 million passengers per annum and will prove to be a boon for 22 districts of Bihar’s North area. Besides Nepal, it will also facilitate air connectivity for the people of the North East region.
Darbhanga Airport belongs to Indian Air Force (IAF). Under UDAN 2, Spice Jet has been identified as Select Airline Operator (SAO) for operation of commercial services flights on Darbhanga -Bengaluru, Darbhanga – Mumbai, Darbhanga- Delhi routes.
AAI is developing an Interim Civil enclave at Darbhanga on 2.3 acres of land leased from IAF which include a terminal building. An additional 2.42 acres of land adjacent to present 2.3 acres of land has been requested from IAF for expansion of terminal building to cater to Code 4C type of aircraft passengers.
After reviewing the groundwork of Darbhanga airport in Bihar, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had informed that flight operations will begin in the first week of November, before the auspicious festival of Chhath Puja.
Meanwhile, budget carrier SpiceJet today started bookings for daily flights from Darbhanga to Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru. The first flight service from Darbhanga Airport (DBR) is going to start from 8 November 2020. The ticket cost is low.
The booking of tickets has triggered a political clash with BJP Member of Parliament Gopalji Thakur and JDU leader Sanjay Jha locking horns to bag the credit for starting air service. Both were supposed to fly in the maiden flight from Bengaluru. But Jha, who is water resources minister in Nitish government, will miss the flight.
