AGARTALA: The Centre will soon declare the Maharaja Bir Bikram (MBB) airport in Tripura’s Agartala as an international airport.
This was informed by Tripura Tourism Minister Sushanta Chowdhury on Thursday while replying to queries raised by Opposition leader Jitendra Chaudhury in the state Assembly.
Efforts are underway to make the two other unused airports in the state operational, he said.
“Eyeing the unrest in Bangladesh, it is uncertain when the flight services to the neighbouring country will be introduced,” the tourism minister said.
The Centre’s move comes after former chief minister Biplab Kumar Deb demanded the MBB airport be granted international status in the Lok Sabha.
Chowdhury also said the Ministry of Civil Aviation has taken initiatives to restart the airports in Kailasahar in Unakoti district and Kamalpur in the Dhalai district, which are lying defunct.
Earlier in December 2022, the state government provided Rs 3.85 crore to the Airports Authority of India (AAI) as three months’ advance for setting up international facilities at the MBB airport apart from deputing 25 police personnel to the Bureau of Immigration under the Ministry of Home Affairs, said the minister.
It was earlier decided SpiceJet would operate flights between Agartala and Chittagong and accordingly the state government had decided to provide an amount of Rs 15 crore to the Airports Authority of India (AAI).
Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the new terminal building of the MBB airport in 2022 that was built at a cost of Rs 438 crore.
Currently, the MBB airport is the second busiest airport in Northeast India, with close to 1.8 million passenger footfall recorded in 2019, after the Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport of Guwahati.
A total of 16 flights are currently operating from the airport with a footfall of 4,000 passengers daily.
The new terminal, with a built-up area of 30,000 square metre, has been designed to handle domestic as well as international passengers simultaneously during the peak hours.
The new terminal building is part of the AAI’s Rs 3,400 crore initiative to develop airports and airfields across different states of Northeast India.
The MBB airport’s history dates back to 1942, when it was built as a military airstrip on a piece of land donated by the then king of Tripura – Maharaja Bir Bikram Manikya Bahadur. The airport was renamed after him in July 2018.
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In the entire Northeastern region, the Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport (LGBIA) in Assam’s capital Guwahati and Bir Tikendrajit International Airport in Manipur’s Imphal enjoys an international status.
Earlier this week, Air India Express introduced daily flights in the Agartala-Guwahati-Delhi-Kolkata route that will facilitate the people of Tripura and other states of the region, who visit West Bengal on a regular basis for medical treatment, education, business, and tourism besides other purposes.
