Bhubaneswar: Ahead of FIH Hockey Men’s World Cup-2023, Chief Secretary Suresh Chandra Mohapatra on Monday urged Government of India for enhancing flight connectivity to VSS Airport, Jharsuguda and operationalization of Rourkela Airport.
The Chief Secretary has written a letter to Rajiv Bansal, Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation, on this issue on Monday.
The upcoming FIH Hockey Men’s World Cup-2023 is scheduled to be held at Bhubaneswar and Rourkela from January 13 to January 29, 2023.
Mr.Mahapatra thanked Mr.Bansal for the steps being taken at Central Government level to make the Rourkela Airport operational at the earliest.
As an alternative to Rourkela Airport, the VSS Airport at Jharsuguda is the nearest domestic Airport having connectivity with cities like Kolkata, Raipur Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Bhubaneswar.
Further, the Jharsuguda city is well connected with Rourkela via road as well as railway. Thus, the access to Rourkela city will be made easier if the air connectivity to Jharsuguda is enhanced, he said.
“Now it is a matter of concern too that Spice Jet is cancelling scheduled flights from different Metro Cities like Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Kolkata, which badly affects the connectivity to the State and to the utmost dissatisfaction of the general public at large, the CS wrote.
Therefore, he urged the Union Civil Aviation Secretary to look into the matter in order to increase the flight frequency/connectivity from important cities to Jharsuguda especially during the month of January, 2023 in view of the upcoming Hockey Men’s World Cup 2023 so as to cater the passenger demand.