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~~ SHIRDI AIRPORT WORK IN FULL SWING ~~

Vishwas Kothari, TNN

02nd July`2010

PUNE: The Maharashtra Airport Development Company

(MADC), the state's special planning authority,

has put the Shirdi airport project in Kopargaon taluka of

Ahmednagar district, in a higher gear.

The Rs 340-crore airport project is a vital part of the stategovernment's effort to promote religious tourism at

Shirdi,

known for the temple of Sai Baba, one of the most

revered spiritual gurus in the country.

The devotees of Sai Baba span across the country as well

as the continents.

Tenders for a slew of project-related activities, including

area-levelling, laying of runway,

building of compound wall around the project area and

laying of drainage, were opened on Wednesday.

"We are now into the phase of issuing work orders overthe next 15 days," a top MADC official told TOI on

Thursday.

The airport is to come up over a sprawling 400 hectare

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(ha) of land at Kakadi village, 11 kms west of Shirdi, and

is

slated to go operational by December 2011.

"We have already acquired 300 ha land in the project

area," the official said, adding,

"The airport will have a single runway which is initially

planned for 2,000 metres in length and eventually going

up to 3,600 mt."

Development of an approach road to the airport site hasalso started, the official said.

"The idea is to start with the operation of domestic flight

services and gradually expand the activity to

international services in line with the growth in demand

for such service," the official said."The initially planned runway will mainly cater to smaller

aircraft of up to 80-seat capacity and the

final runway extension will enable landing of larger aircraft

like Boeing 737s and 747s."

On an average, 80,000 devotees visit the temple towneach day and the numbers go up to 2.5 to 3 lakh per day

during vacations,

festival season and weekend holidays. A large chunk of

these visitors are non-resident Indians (NRIs), foreigners

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as well as celebrities.

As of now, the Aurangabad airport serves as the nearest

airport for devotees planning to travel by air to the temple

town.

While Aurangabad is located 125 kms from Shirdi, cities

like Pune and Mumbai are located some 200km and 325

km from Shirdi, respectively.

Travel by road from these cities to the temple town is

often a costly and time-consuming affairs.

The Ahmednagar district administration sealed the deal for

acquisition of land for the airport project on December 22,

2009

with declaration of compensation awards for land secured

from farmers partly through consent and throughcompulsory acquisition process.

Over 65 per cent of the total 700-odd farmers in the

project area gave their consent to the acquisition process.