Shirdi airport: Commercial flights to take off in April

PUNE: After a six year long wait, the Maharashtra Airport Development Company have confirmed that the upcoming Shirdi airport will be open for commercial flights from April this year.

The airport, an important tourist location in the state will operationalise the Greenfield Shirdi airport and schedule flights for devotees thronging the Shirdi temple for both domestic and international flights town this year, which also marks the Sai Baba Samadhi Centenary Utsav 2017-18.

MADC officials said that from the last six years they have been working towards the completion of the project. The project is spread on 350 hectares of land and the entire project is spread on 30,000 sq feet. “The construction has been completed. We were looking at inaugurating the operations in December itself, however it got delayed. We are looking at a date in April now and we are looking forward to have Prime Minister inaugurating the operations and the centenary celebrations,” stated the officials from MADC.

The project costs a staggering Rs 340 crore and is government’s initiative to promote tourism at the pilgrimage site where 80,000 devotees visit the temple daily. The government ahead of the announcement of Municipal corporation elections also decided to allot land to Indian Oil Corporation for setting up aviation fuelling point.

The Shirdi airport is located in Kakdi village about 14 km south-west of Shirdi. MADC completed the construction work last year and had applied to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for an aerodrome license to commence operation of non-scheduled flights.

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