Bihar Chief Secretary Amir Subhani reviewed the present status of all operational and non-operational airports in the state, given the public interest litigation (PIL) filed in the Patna High Court (HC).

Patna airport, Gaya airport and Darbhanga airport are operational in Bihar, while the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and the Centre intends to start flight operations from different cities under the Regional Connectivity Scheme-Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik (RCS-UDAN).

Officials told the chief secretary that Munger airport has a shorter runway and cannot even handle the smaller aircraft. The Sabeya airport in Gopalganj belongs to Indian Air Force (IAF), and airports in Forbesganj, Raxaul and Muzaffarpur come under the AAI.

The additional chief secretary of the cabinet secretariat department, Sanjay Kumar, said the chief secretary urged to know the status of all the airports in Bihar so the state government could file the affidavit in the HC.

He said that the department had acquired 52 acres of land in Purnea. The state is under transferring the land to the AAI for constructing a civil enclave, following which the commercial flight operation will begin.

He added that for Patna airport, the department had already transferred 4.5 acres of land for installing Doppler Very High-Frequency Omni Range (DVOR) equipment and 12 acres for constructing an isolation bay. The department will also transfer about 26 acres for the parallel taxi track (PTT), with the new terminal building work and other infrastructures ongoing at Patna airport.

The view cutter has been installed from the main gate of the Darbhanga airport to the end so the runway cannot be seen from the road.

Around 78 acres of land will be acquired for the permanent civil enclave, auxiliary buildings and runway extension.

The new civil enclave will be built over 54 acres of land for the terminal building, cargo handling, multi-level car parking, fire station and other infrastructure and 24 acres for installing a Category 1 instrument landing system (ILS).

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