‘Belda to have war plane landing, take off facility by next year’

Kolkata: The Bakhrabad area at Belda in West Midnapore will soon have war plane landing and take off facility on the national highway. If everything goes as per plans, then by the mid-next year, the infrastructure on NH 60 will be ready. According to sources, 30 metres of land on either side of the proposed area on the national highway has been taken for the construction of this runway.

The concrete divider between the two lanes of the national highway has been removed. The runway is going to be 5-km-long from Bakhrabad to Poktapool and the control of the runway will be automated. Kalaikunda Air Base camp near Kharagpur is not far from Belda and hence the Bakhrabad region has been chosen. The National Highway Authority wants to complete the road widening work at a very fast pace. The remaining work is targeted to be completed in seven months.

There are plans of developing such facilities in more than 10 places in the state, on all the national highways near the Air Force base.

The project is a joint initiative of the Indian Air Force and the National Highway Authority of India. “The move is significant at a time when tensions have been rising on the India-China border. Geographically, it will take 20 minutes for the Air Force to fly from this place to the China border through the state of Sikkim,” an official associated with this development said.

He added that in an emergent situation if the Air Force base is somehow captured by the enemy, there needs to be some sort of additional infrastructure for landing and taking off war planes. Keeping this in mind, it was decided in 2015 that warplanes should take off and land on the national highways spread in different parts of the country.

This project has been taken up in all the national highways where there are airbases and Bengal is not an exception.