Guwahati-Lilabari flight

It is indeed a matter of grave concern that the lone Guwahati-Lilabari flight, which was awarded to SpiceJet, has remained non-operational since July 2019. The introduction of a direct flight from Lilabari to Guwahati after a long gap of several years in fact served a large population not just in the Lakhimpur and Dhemaji districts of Assam. With the absence of an airport for the Arunachal Pradesh capital, Lilabari is the nearest airport for people from Itanagar, Naharlagun and Doimukh (which has Rajiv Gandhi University) from where to fly to Guwahati and then catch flights to various destinations across the country. The people of Itanagar-Naharlagun-Doimukh are now left in the lurch. They are either compelled to catch an evening flight to Kolkata, which again is generally irregular, or are left at the mercy of taxis to Guwahati which are notorious for plying in break-neck speed. Over and above that, bandhs and blockades are still common on the national highway in northern Assam. This poor story about the state of civil aviation has emerged at a time when the BJP-led government of Narendra Modi has been regularly chanting mantras about its ambitious and much-hyped UDAN (Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik) scheme and about the Act East Policy, both of which stands meaningless because of the indefinite suspension of the Lilabari-Guwahati flight. Moreover, a number of government officers belonging to different states of the Northeast are required to fly frequently among the seven states for various crucial meetings and conferences. Thanks to the withdrawal of Spicejet’s this flight, an officer from Imphal, for instance, now has to first fly to Kolkata, and then to Lilabari in order to reach Itanagar or Naharlagun. This has also made a mockery of the Union Government’s various much-publicized initiatives for the Northeastern Region in regard to the development of the Aviation sector in areas of modernization, upgrading airport, enhancement of regional connectivity and development of other related services. A similar situation had happened to the Aizawl-Guwahati sector, when passengers flying between the two cities were compelled to first fly to Kolkata, and then take another flight to Guwahati, in the process losing precious money as well as valuable time. What has been most disgusting is that elected representatives of the people from this region appear least interested in such a crucial issue related to regional connectivity. The BJP-led government of Sarbananda Sonowal too appears to be not interested.