Bokaro can hope to fly high from next year as the upcoming airport in the steel town is gearing up to host commercial flights to Patna and Calcutta.
This will be the second airport under UDAN, the centrally sponsored regional air-connectivity scheme, after Deoghar airport which too is in the final stages of commencement.
Last week, Airports Authority of India (AAI) announced on Twitter that Bokaro strip, being prepared at a cost of Rs 46 crore, is ready to host civilian flights. “Bokaro airport presently manages non-scheduled flights. Once civil operations start it will connect the steel city to Patna and Kolkata under RCS-UDAN,” the AAI said.
The airport is owned by domestic steel major SAIL. In April 2018, SAIL signed a pact with AAI and the Union civil aviation ministry for using three of the PSU’s airstrips — Rourkela (West Bengal), Bokaro (Jharkhand) and Burnpur (Odisha) — under UDAN.
Soon after, work began to revamp the Bokaro airport. The project included the construction of a terminal building with a peak-hour passenger capacity of 300 along with strengthening and re-carpeting the runway, apron and taxi track for ATR-72 aircraft.
