Bhubaneswar: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday inaugurated the newly-constructed Malkangiri Airport at Katelguda under Goudaguda panchayat, on the outskirts of the town in southwesternmost district of Odisha.
With this, the number of operational airports in the state has gone up to seven.
“Air connectivity to Malkangiri will usher in a new era of development, open up avenues of business and tourism and further transform lives of people in the region,” Naveen said.
The CM also approved the proposed Govindapalli Integrated Irrigation Project in Mathili Block of Malkangiri district with an outlay of Rs 4000 crore during the visit. This is a Storage Irrigation Project for which two dams will constructed across Saptadhara and Garia rivers along with a connecting tunnel and irrigation system through underground pipelines. It will help to irrigate an additional 92,815 acres of agricultural land in four blocks – Malkangiri, Matheli, Khairiput and Korkunda – and also provide drinking water to 1.50 lakh people, a CMO release said.
5T and Naveen Odisha Chairman V Karthik Pandian was present on the occasion.
MALKANGIRI AIRPORT
The airport has been built over 94.5 hectare of land with a 1,620 metre long and 30 metre wide runway at an expenditure of Rs 33 crore. Authorities of Biju Patnaik International Airport (BPIA) in Bhubaneswar have provided technical assistance to make the airport operational. In the first phase, nine-seater aircrafts are likely to operate from the airport while larger aircrafts will provide services later, sources said.
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The airport is the second significant connectivity project in the district after Gurupriya bridge over river Janbai, inaugurated by the Chief Minister in 2018. The bridge went on to become the paragon of development in Swabhiman area, once considered a Maoist hotbed, by providing connectivity between the cut-off areas and the mainland.
Notably, this is also the CM’s second visit to the district in 3 months On October 12, 2023, Naveen visited Malkangiri to launch affordable bus service under the Location Accessible Multimodal Initiative (LAccMI) scheme, besides initiating development projects worth Rs 793 crore in the tribal-dominated district.
