VIJAY DEO JHA
Ranchi, March 3: Sahibganj will be another district of Santhal Pargana after Deoghar which will have an airport as the Jharkhand government in the budget has proposed construction of an airport here. However, in the budget, a roadmap for the airport has not been explained whether the state government will place the proposal before the Centre under a regional connectivity scheme.
While presenting the budget, finance minister Rameshwar Oraon said that an airport was very much required here since Sahibganj has emerged as a multi-model hub connected by road, rail, and water.
“The state government proposes to build an airport at Sahibganj to accelerate the economic activities of not only Sahibganj but also the entire area by connecting it by air,” the minister said.
Hitherto undeveloped, Sahibganj is now emerging as a new hub of national and international trade. On September 12, 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had inaugurated India’s second riverine Multi-Modal terminal built at Sahibganj. Built at a cost of Rs 290 Crores, Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of multimodal terminal in April 2017, a project of the Inland Waterways Authority of India. This was the second of the three Multi-Modal Terminals constructed on the river Ganga under the Jal Marg Vikas Project.
The Multi-Modal terminal at Sahibganj can connect Jharkhand with the global market and provide Indo-Nepal cargo connectivity through the route of the waterway. The multi-Modal terminal has connected the district to Kolkata, Haldia, and further to the Bay of Bengal besides the North-East States through Bangladesh by the river-sea route.
In the budget speech, the minister said that the government has planned to draft the State Civil Aviation Policy, 2022 with the objective of promoting investment in the aviation sector and creating new employment opportunities in the state. The Minister informed that ‘Jharkhand Flying Institute’ will be formed as a society to give impetus to aeronautical training in Jharkhand.
