Pradhan launches IndianOil’s 100th aviation fuel station
BY MPost5 March 2016 9:14 PM GMT
MPost5 March 2016 9:14 PM GMT
The country’s national downstream petroleum refining and marketing company Indian Oil Corporation Ltd’s (IOCL) 100th Aviation Fuel Station (AFS) was inaugurated by Minister of State (I/C) for Petroleum & Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan at Rourkela in Sundergarh district, Odisha, on Saturday. Present on the occasion were Union Tribal Affairs Minster Jual Oram, Minister of State for
Railways Manoj Sinha, IndianOil Director (Marketing) B S Canth, Executive Director (CC & Branding) Indrajit Bose, Executive Director (Aviation) T S Khwaja and Executive Director (Eastern Region Regional Services) Gautam Bose.
Speaking on the occasion, Pradhan emphasised that this indigenously developed AFS is in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make In India’ initiative . He stated that the Rourkela AFS would contribute immensely towards the development of the state, particularly western Odisha. He observed that this facility will serve the backward areas by connecting them to the mainstream. This is in line with Prime Minister Modi’s vision of ‘Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas’. Pradhan stated that after independence, Odisha has now started to get its deserved recognition and will in a few years be counted as one of the top industrially developed states of India.
Canth said that this AFS is the 100th AFS of IndianOil and 2nd in Odisha. IndianOil has ushered a new impetus to the economic development of this entire region through the inauguration of the Paradeep refinery.
Similarly, the Rourkela AFS would started contributing to the economic development of Rourkela and the entire region. Highlighting the salient features of the Rourkela AFS, Canth said that this particular AFS has been installed at one-fifth the cost of a full-fledged AFS. He added that this new AFS would encourage other commercial aircraft to refuel and operate from Rourkela, making it a new commercial hub in eastern India. At present, private operators with helicopters and smaller aircraft operate from Rourkela airport with a current estimated fuel volume of 25 KL.
On account of the non-availability of aviation turbine fuel (ATF) at Rourkela, aircraft operating through Rourkela had to be refueled from nearby airports like Ranchi (225 km), Jamshedpur (303 km), Bhubaneswar (320 km), Raipur (450 km), Nagpur( 602 km) or Gaya (419 km). With the inauguration of the Rourkela AFS, these aircraft can now be refueled at Rourkela, paving the way for more aircraft to operate and refuel at Rourkela.
Sinha, Oram, and Rourkela MLA Dilip Kumar Ray congratulated the IndianOil employees for their arduous efforts to complete the project and expressed the hope that this AFS would pave the way for larger commercial operations from Rourkela Airport in the near future and aid in the overall development of the region.
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