New Delhi, July 25 (IANS) There are 25 airports across the country which don't have night landing facilities. Kushinagar airport, Shimla airport and recently inaugurated Deoghar airport in Jharkhand are among the list of 25 airports.
The ministry of civil aviation on Monday said in the Rajya Sabha that the upgradation or modernisation of airports, including provision of night landing facility is a continuous process and is undertaken by Airports Authority of India (AAI) and other airport operators from time to time depending on the availability of land, commercial viability, socio- economic considerations, traffic demand and willingness of airlines to operate to/from such airports etc.
"Presently night landing facility which is purely demand and need based on operational requirement of airlines and availability of land is not available at 25 operational airports with scheduled flight operations," said the ministry.
The list of airports not having night landing facility also include airports like Kullu and Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh, Bilaspur and Jagdalpur in Chhattisgarh, Kalaburagi in Karnataka, Kolhapur and Sindhudurg in Maharashtra and and Ludhiana in Punjab among others.
AAI has undertaken installation of a night landing facility at Kolhapur airport. A team of Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has carried out the inspection of the airport on June 10, 2022. AAI has already initiated action for compliance of the observations made by DGCA during the inspection.
The country has over 100 operational airports and officials said that the airports not having night landing facilities are mostly those recording lower air passenger traffic. Airports Authority of India, which manages most of the airports in India, takes up a particular one for consideration for providing night landing facilities, when airlines show an interest during night operations.
The Chief Minister said the government is fully sensitive towards checking cross-border infiltration in Punjab. He said Punjab Police is constantly in touch with the Border Security Force (BSF) and other agencies for this purpose.
While briefing the officers, the DGP said the topmost priority of the government, as directed by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, is to further strengthen the fight against drugs to make Punjab a drug-free state, besides eliminating the gangster culture, maintaining law and order, and detection of crime.
Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur announced Rs 5 lakh to the next of the kin of the deceased, whereas Rs 15,000 as immediate relief for the injured. He said free treatment would be provided to the injured.
Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Monday carried out his first Cabinet expansion by inducting five legislators, including second-time MLA Aman Arora, into his council of ministers. The expansion came in less than four months of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) sweeping to victory in the Assembly elections by winning 92 seats of the 117 seats.
The police have so far managed to nab four of the accused, including one woman, who have been identified as Gurjant Singh (31), Navjot Singh (30), Satpal Singh (28) and Gurpreet Kaur (30).
The ambidextrous sharpshooter, identified as Ankit alias Chhota, a resident of Sonipat in Haryana, was most desperate to commit the crime."He fired simultaneously from two pistols in his two hands," H.G.S. Dhaliwal, Special Commissioner (Special Cell), said during a media briefing.
