Air connectivity in Northeast

Union DoNER Minister GK Reddy announced in Aizawl on Thursday that daily direct flights between New Delhi and all North-eastern states were under consideration of the Centre. With insurgency and militancy becoming things of the past, the new generation of the region wants to soar to new heights by dint of their talent and potential. But what has stood in the way of the region is the state of connectivity, particularly air connectivity. The Centre has offered various incentives to attract airline companies to extend their services to the Northeast. But, the reality is far from satisfactory. Almost every regime had in the past 20 years or so promised to improve the region's air connectivity. But, barring Imphal, there are no regular daily early morning flights from Guwahati to the other state capitals or vice versa. As a result, people have to waste a lot of valuable time to reach those destinations. Had there been early morning flights from Guwahati to all the NE capitals and vice versa, it would have benefited the people in many ways. One, people from Guwahati could reach the other capitals early in the day and get to work/business the same day. And two, people flying in early to Guwahati from different NE states would be able to reach other destinations across the country without much loss of time by catching connecting flights from Guwahati. The Union DoNER Minister probably needs to be told that there are certain sectors in which certain operators are unnecessarily flying aircraft. For instance, there is a flight from Guwahati to Dibrugarh via Agartala. While the direct Guwahati-Dibrugarh sector is very busy, those passengers who are compelled to catch the Guwahati-Agartala-Dibrugarh flight, have to unnecessarily fly to the southern tip of the region and then head for Dibrugarh, spending several valuable hours. Even worse is the fact that while the Guwahati-Agartala portion of the flight is always full, there are no new passengers from Agartala to Dibrugarh. What is likely to happen is that the private airline would one day declare the Agartala-Dibrugarh sector as unviable and hence be withdrawn. What probably is required are more flights between Dimapur and Guwahati, Dimapur and Imphal, and even Dimapur and Dibrugarh. The DoNER Ministry probably has to be also reminded of the fact that the Umroi airport (Shillong) has the worst connectivity among all airports in the region. Also that an airport at Balzek (near Tura in Meghalaya) "inaugurated" by then President Pratibha Patil in October 2008 has been lying unutilized even after 14 years.