Government apathy leaves Mysore airport runway expansion in limbo

Mysuru: The cultural city is a major tourist center of Karnataka. But the State government is dilly dallying on expansion of the Mandakalli airport runway for more than three years. It has shifted its focus to development of Shimoga and Hassan airports.

The Airports Authority of India has approved the runway expansion project and even allocated Rs 700 crore for the purpose. There has been a clamour from industrialists, hotel owners and educational institutions for expansion of the runway. Mysoreans residing in other States and abroad have been flooding the State government with request through social media to take up the project for the sake of greater connectivity. But all this is not moving the rulers.

The existing 1,740-meter runway is proposed to be expanded to 2,850 meters so that Boeing , Airbus and other large aircraft can land here. The expansion requires 280 acres of land. Farmers have come forward to sell 114 acres and the State government has agreed to pay Rs 1.5 crore per acre. But everything is in limbo as the government has not released a penny in three years. Speaking to The Hans India, airport director R Manjunath said, "We are waiting for land acquisition.

We will soon start work." MP Pratap Simha , MLA G T Devegowda have been putting pressure on the government to execute the project as early as possible but without any success. Krishnappa, an Economics lecturer in Mysuru University, said the runway expansion would give tremendous impetus to real estate, IT, BT industry , hospitality , tourism sectors apart from creating thousands of jobs.