Lucknow, Mar 3 (IANS): The Yogi Adityanath government has said that the proposed airport in Ayodhya will become functional early next year.

According to the government spokesman, the state government has released over Rs 321 crore for the land acquisition for the project.

Earlier, the Centre had released its contribution of Rs 250 crore. In addition to it, the state government has approved Rs 1,001.77 crore to purchase 555.66 acres of additional land for the construction of the international airport.

So far, 377 acres of land has been made available to the Airports Authority of India for the development of the airport.

Moreover, a budgetary provision of Rs 101 crore has been proposed for the development of the airport in the state's annual budget this year.

The spokesman said that the centre had selected Ayodhya airstrip under Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS). He added that Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had instructed officials to make an action plan for the international level air connectivity of Ayodhya.

The Centre had selected Ayodhya airstrip for Ayodhya-Hindon air route under the RCS scheme.

Subsequently, in November 2018, the chief minister had announced the development of the airstrip at Ayodhya for large aircraft such as A 320 and Boeing 737 and the construction of a suitable runway and terminal building.

In order to develop an international level airport in Ayodhya, it was decided to develop it for Boeing 777-300 type aircraft.

For this, the state government signed an MoU with the AAI.

For the operation of civil air services in Ayodhya, an MoU was signed on February 24, 2014, between the state government and AAI.