President inaugurates Jalgaon airport

Jalgaon (Maharashtra), March 23 (IANS) President Pratibha Patil Friday inaugurated the Jalgaon airport in north Maharashtra, as well as the second phase work of the airport to extend its airstrip for accommodating landing and take-off of bigger airplanes.

'Jalgaon is an important centre of northern Maharashtra. If you look at the city, you will see a fast progressing place. The presence of ample manpower and infrastructure can attract many a company. This will lead to generation of jobs and the existing businesses can get a move on,' Patil said after the inauguration.

Jalgaon airport's foundation stone was first laid on Nov 18, 1971 and later again on May 18, 1973. It was then acquired by the municipal council on April 4, 1997. It was then shifted to state airport development company on April 23, 2007.

This was followed by its acquisition by the Airports Authority of India July 28, 2009 to boost the development.

Patil had laid the foundation stone for the airport work on June 13, 2010.

Air India and Jet Airways are amongst front-runner airlines to take survey of Jalgaon airport commercial aspects to start their flights post-inauguration.

Jalgaon Airport has working area, terminal building and car parking areas having water conservation and harvesting mechanism, focuses more use of solar energy with automated battery backup system, has green zone developed in airport periphery to ease airplanes landing, and take-off noise factor.

The airport passenger area has fully air-conditioned waiting room for 50 passengers, reserved lounge, public addressing system and dedicated electricity supplies with 50 car parking bay. It has two ATR airplane parking and apron area and latest aircraft operations system installed.

Jalgaon is over 400 km from Mumbai.