Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Friday rued the delay in the construction of a civil enclave at the airport in Purnia, which is owned and run by the Indian Air Force, and sought to put the blame on the union government.
Talking to reporters in Purnia during his visit to the town as part of his “Samadhan Yatra” on Friday, Kumar said, “Whatever they (Centre) demanded, we agreed. Still, it has not been constructed. The civil enclave in Purnia should have been made much before Darbhanga.”
Kumar said he had been raising the demand since 2017.
The CM said he had directed Sanjay Jha, state’s water resources minister, to go to Delhi to resolve the issue.
Jha, who was accompanying Kumar, said, “I have given my commitment for linking the road from the proposed civil enclave to national highway even though work has not been started.”
Earlier, BJP leader and former deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi had accused Bihar government of not cooperating. “The Airport Authority of India (AAI) had sought the land (52.10 acres) from the northern side of the runway while it was acquired from the southern side.”
Later, the state government had said it would build a road to link the acquired land to the nearest national highway.
The runway at the IAF airport in Purnia (11,000X150 feet) is similar to that of airports in big cities like Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Mangalore and re-carpeting of the runway has already been completed.
In 2012, flight services between Purnia and Patna and Purnia and Kolkata had started, but they were discontinued in 2013.
The existing airport is located at Chunapur, 10 kilometres from Purnia town. It was built after the Indo-China war in 1962.
