In what can be described as huge disappointing news, Chief Minister Pema Khandu on Monday informed the Assembly that the Central Govt is yet to approve and allocate funds for construction of the Greenfield airport in the state capital despite recommendation of the government in favour of the Hollongi site. After much delay due to litigation and other issues, Hollongi was finalized as site for the airport. There was expectation that government will speed up the project but things seems to be going opposite.
Itanagar is the only state capital not to have airport of its own. Successive government whether it is in the state or at centre has failed to deliver the promise of constructing an airport. Because of the wrong policy of people involved in planning the airport project it unnecessarily got delayed. First it took so many years to finalize the site and now government is delaying it to reason best known to them. Government of India claims that it wants to develop North East region but by denying airport service to people of Itanagar they are doing great disservice. Arunachal is a sensitive which shares international boundaries with countries like China, Myanmar and Bhutan. To make matter worse China lays claim on major part of the state. Therefore it is astonishing that union government is neglecting such a sensitive border state.