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February
4, 2001
Khulna, Feb 3 (UNB) - Work on the long-cherished Khan Jahan Ali Airport is going on at a snail’s pace due to bureaucratic tangles.
No body knows when the airport will be opened as the earth filling work has yet not been completed in the last five years.
It is more interesting that the farmers still grow paddy on lowlands acquired by the authorities.
The authorities first took initiatives to set up the airport at Phultala Mashiali, 17km off the city, in 1961. But the project was cancelled in 1968 due to reasons unknown.
Later, the authorities selected the site for a airport at Bildakatia area and completed some semi-pucca roads. However, the plan was later cast off just after independence.
Another plan to set up the airport at Katakhali on Khulna-Mongla highway was discarded during the regime of former President Ziaur Rahman in 1980.
At last, the authorities concerned selected the site at Faila in Rampal upazila and acquired 95 acres of land there in 1995.
Former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia laid the foundation stone of the airport on January 27, 1996 after the name of Pir Khan Jahan Ali.
The construction work on the airport was again stopped after Awami League government assumed power in June in the same year.
However, construction work resumed after two years under the supervision of Civil Aviation Authorities.
Informed sources said the proposed airport would not be able to meet the requirement of the industrial belt of the region due its small size.
An airport needs minimum 4,000-ft runway, but Khan Jahan Ali Airport is being constructed only with 2,500-ft runway. As a result, many of the domestic airplanes, including GMG aircraft, would not be able to operate from the airport.
The airport is badly needed, as there is only one airport in this region at Jessore, 65km off the city.
It was known that on an average, 50,000 passengers travel on Dhaka-Jessore route every year and the majority of the passengers, mainly businessmen and traders, are from Khulna.
The fast completion of the airport is necessitated following establishment of an EPZ at Mongla and declaration of the world’s largest mangrove forest, the Sundarban, as the World Heritage site by UNESCO.
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