Bhubaneswar: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has urged the Centre for operationalisation of the Rourkela Airport for the FIH Hockey Men’s World Cup 2023, which will be jointly held in the Odisha capital and Rourkela in January next year.
In a letter to Union Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Thursday, Naveen wrote: “Important activities like the renewal of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) and Airports Authority of India (AAI), completion of runway and terminal building, airport systems installation, may be closely reviewed by the Ministry.”
The airport, owned by the SAIL, is expected to play a major role in transportation during the mega sporting event.
The letter was a reiteration of the state government’s October 1 request to direct SAIL to execute the MoU with AAI for operations of the airport. The MoU signed between SAIL and AAI for the operation and management of flight connectivity under the UDAN scheme on April 23, 2018, is currently not in force.
Naveen also sought his intervention for persuading airlines to start operations to Rourkela from metro cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata.
Currently, various work for upgrading work is being taken up by the AAI at the airport and it is scheduled to be completed by the end of October. In September, FIH chief executive officer Thierry Weil told the media that teams will land at Rourkela airport in chartered flights while spectators and others can come to Jharsuguda from Mumbai and Delhi. The state government will organise shuttle services to bring them from the airport to Rourkela, he added.
The quadrennial world championship will take place at the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneshwar and Bisra Munda Stadium in Rourkela from January 13 to 29, 2023.
On September 27, the chief secretary urged Union Civil Aviation Secretary Rajiv Bansal to enhance flight connectivity to Veer Surendra Sai (VSS) Airport in Jharsuguda and operationalisation of Rourkela Airport. “As an alternative to Rourkela Airport, the VSS Airport at Jharsuguda is the nearest domestic Airport having connectivity with cities like Kolkata, Raipur Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Bhubaneswar. Further, Jharsuguda city is well connected with Rourkela via road as well as railway. Thus, the access to Rourkela city will be made easier if the air connectivity to Jharsuguda is enhanced,” he said.
