Sheekha Bureau
Port Blair, Nov 14: The Lt. Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands today interacted with media persons and mentioned that A & N Islands are rapidly progressing on the path of prosperity, growth and development, with plethora of developmental projects at various stages of execution/implementation.
Among major points he said that out of four airports that we have, in Shibpur, Diglipur, for the extension for 3 km plus runway, land allotment has already taken place. He said that revenue land, Forest land and land required for compensatory afforestation have already been allotted. The Lt. Governor said that in this process acquisition of a private land is involved for 20 hac for which process has been initiated but that process is governed by new land acquisition act and it will take time of more than a year. However, he said that the Administration is hopeful that by December under UDAAN scheme first inauguration flight of small aircraft will begin from Shibpur airport. By then the airport will be able handle Dornier equivalent aircrafts.
Regarding Port Blair airport he said that the airport it meets all the requirement of what, an airport should not have. For this the administration has taken up proposal for construction of a brand new Greenfield airport for which three sites have been proposed in South Andaman area. He said that this proposal has moved fairly forward. He said that for Campbell Bay’s airport also a new location is being proposed and in that case also three sites have been proposed.
To promote Heli-tourism, augmentation of helicopter services using the existing helipad and involving service providers will be worked out by the M/o Civil Aviation in consultation with UT Administration. Previously, Expression of Interest was floated by the UT Administration and a bidder’s conference was organised on 08th June, 2018 at New Delhi. Inter-islands sea-plane transportation and water terminals in different islands are also being considered.
He said that relaxation in RAP regime for facilitating visit of foreign tourists has already been done and proposal for e-visa/Visa-on-arrival in A&N is under consideration.
He said that the Administration has forwarded a series of proposals to act as a “Gateway to ASEAN/East Asia”and to formulate & institutionalize direct trade with SE Asian countries, so as to economize on both time and expenditure.
To improve water availability, the Lt. Governor said that PBMC has been laying pipelines across Port Blair area with increased diameter so that water can be provided seamlessly to households.
“As a pilot project, captive rainwater harvesting with 15 lakh litres storage capacity is being developed in Raj Niwas premises, which depending on rainfall will result in the Saving of about 100 lakh litres of water over one year duration,” the LG said.
He added that steps are being taken with the help of Central Agencies to augment ship repair facilities in the islands. This will give fillip to shipping industry here, reduce time required in ship maintenance and repair, generate employment and help in improving the skill-set of persons associated with shipping sector. A Mou has been signed between Administration and Cochin Shipyard Ltd in September 2018 for developing and upgrading ship repair facilities at Port Blair including skill development in the sector. Also, holistic assessment of Shipping Sector is being undertaken.
He said that major efforts are on to review the Master Plan of Municipal area, curb unplanned grow, and incorporate adequate safety measures for disaster preparedness during the construction phase, etc., with the overall objective of achieving a planned and safe habitat. The issue of fire hazard has been taken stock of and Fire Safety Wing of A&N Police has completed Basic fire Safety audit of all public spaces including hotels, restaurants, places of public congregation, etc. in A&N Islands. Mandatory Fire safety requirements in all buildings are planned to be introduced through amending bye-Laws, since these provision did not exist hitherto. Detailed assessment audit of issues requiring structural changes will also commence soon.
Accepting that condition of NH is a sore point, he said that Maintenance works for whole stretch of NH-4 has been awarded and NHIDCL has committed that by December 2018 end work on major stretches of 330 km will be completed.
The LG said that tender for submarine optical Fibre Cable connecting Chennai and Port Blair and 7 different Islands (viz. Little Andaman, Car Nicobar, Havelock, Kamorta, Campbell Bay, Rangat and Long Island) have been awarded in May 2018 to a Japanese Firm. Separately, A&N Administration is also pursuing for redundancy link by undersea Cable with Kolkata. The available bandwidth is expected to increase from present 1.56 Gbps to over 2 Gbps by end 2018. Efforts are also being under taken with target of augmentation of available satellite bandwidth to in excess of 4 GBPS.
He said that the Administration is promoting sustainable tourism which has Contributed significantly towards revenue earning employment generation a and maintaining the ecology of these Islands Last year (i.e. In the year 2017) 487000 tourists visited the Islands, showing an increase of 21.80 percent from 2016. This year also the tourist arrival to the islands has witnessed increase. Till October 2018, 402590 tourist have arrived which is 6.13% greater than arrival during the same duration previous year. He said that this is expected to get boost in view of upcoming peak tourism months.
