Arunachal Governor takes stock of work on Hollongi Airport

Itanagar: Arunachal Pradesh Governor Brig (Retd) BD Mishra on Monday visited the under-construction greenfield Airport at Hollongi near here, and took stock of the progress of work.
During his visit, Swapnil Naik, Secretary, Civil Aviation, GoAP, Dilip M Sajnani, General Manager, Airport Authority of India (AAI), senior officers of PWD, Power and PHED, and the contractors, briefed the Governor on the progress of work.
Observing that the work on the greenfield Airport had substantially slowed down during the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, he said that, for ensuring the timely completion, the delays have to be made up by deploying extra workforces, additional plants and machines, proportionate increased availability of construction materials, close supervision and regular monitoring of the work flow chart.
The Governor said that unless these aspects are taken care of, the completion of the Airport on time is not possible.
Stressing that there was a pressing need for simultaneous work input on all segments of the Airport, he said the supervisors of each segment of construction should be made accountable for the quality of work and the planned progress according to the target timeline.
The Governor expressed concern regarding the delay in award of the contract for works of other essential infrastructure, which has an outlay of over Rs 1,60.65 crore and is still in the stage of inviting tenders.
He mentioned to the Secretary of Civil Aviation that while observing the due process of tendering, acceptance of bid and award of work, there should be a strict focus on the target date for the completion of the work.
The Governor also observed that, for the future extension of the runway, there is reported thinking of diverting the course of Kokila river.
To obviate the need for diverting the course of the river, which may cause other natural adverse ramifications, this could be reviewed by examining the scope for the future extension of the runway on either end of the currently planned runway, he said.
While going around the runway area, the Governor noticed that the new approach road under construction to the Airport is running along the foothills which is the reserve forest area. This reserve forest is being rampantly encroached upon at various places. They are blatantly treating their encroachment as their private land.
The Governor suggested to the PCCF, DC and SP, Papum Pare to carry out a joint survey of the affected reserve forest with a view to identify the encroachments and take appropriate action so that no encroachment takes place on the reserve forest land.
He also impressed upon all the stakeholders to work in a mission mode, so that, there is no compromise in the quality of work as also there is no delay in the targeted completion of this Airport.