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Central Government/Public Sector | West Bengal - India | PID: 198502
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The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has decided to develop emergency landing facilities for fighter and transport aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF) at three places in West Bengal. The agency has identified a five-km straight stretch on three national highways including Belda on NH-16, Singur in Hooghly and the Hasimara-Guwahati highway in north Bengal
Work for the first facility has already started at Belda on NH-16, which connects Kharagpur and Balasore in Odisha. It will be ready by March 2023. Over 30 per cent of the work has been carried out at Belda along the 160 km stretch between Kharagpur and Baleshwar. Belda is the only place where the agency has found a five-km straight stretch. Kharagpur has six airbases and the IAF needs a facility for landing aircraft in an emergency situation. The stretch on Durgapur Expressway near Singur leads to the Panagarh army base in Burdwan. In north Bengal, the emergency landing facility is important because of the chicken neck, the corridor with Nepal and Bangladesh, the two nations lying on each side and IAF wanted an emergency landing facility because of China’s location
| Updated on: 28 - May - 2022
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