Land Acquisition Takes Off For New Airstrip In This Odisha District

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government has started the process of land acquisition to build an airstrip in Malkangiri district.

As part of the plan, the government will convert 13.233 hectares of forest land into non-forest land for the proposed project, which is estimated to cost Rs 15 crore.

Current Status

Executive Engineer (Roads and Buildings) of Malkangiri has written to the District Collector to identify the necessary land.

In turn, the district administration has written to the Deputy Director General of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), seeking permission for the conversion of forest land.

Compensatory Land

The district administration has also directed the local tehsildar to identify 26.466 hectares of land for plantation to compensate for the loss of forest land.

Once the alternative land for plantation is identified, steps will be taken for constructing the airstrip on the identified forest land.

The local tehsildar had earlier identified a location for the airstrip. But the Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) had shot down the proposal. Following this, a process to identify new land had started.