by reciprocal arrangement with Star of Mysore

Mysore, Jun 22: Lok Sabha member C.H. Vijayashankar said a delegation comprising the Deputy Commissioner S. Selvakumar and Infrastructure Development Department Principal Secretary Vinay Kumar would be meeting the top officials of the Airport Authority of India (AAI) in Delhi in about 15 days to impress upon the authority to at least begin the airport work at Mandakalli with the available 154 acres of land.

He was speaking at a meeting held at the Deputy Commissioner's office on Wednesday June 21, after the inspection of Mandakalli Airport with a team of top officials of AAI including its Deputy General Manager (Civil) M.N.N. Rao earlier in the day.

"The matter of 20-acre land that is under litigation will be solved soon and the available 154 acres can be used and in the meeting to be held in Delhi, we will try to convince them to begin the work," he said.

Deputy Commissioner S. Selvakumar said the present plan of airport on 175 acres is sufficient enough to handle 65-seater-aircraft and a master plan is being drafted to add another 93 acres to expand the airport so that Boeing aircraft can also operate from here.

"The AAI has asked for that additional 93 acres and the land has already been identified as long back as in 2001 itself. Only final notification in this regard is awaited," Selvakumar added.