Will Build Highway Airstrips In 15 Days: Nitin Gadkari To Air Force Chief

New Delhi:

The nation’s first emergency touchdown strip for IAF planes constructed on a nationwide freeway in Rajasthan, was opened by Union ministers Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari as we speak. The strip in Barmer – constructed over a interval of 19 months — can be used for emergency touchdown of IAF plane.  Mr Gadkari, nevertheless, promised that in future, such touchdown strips can be in-built a matter of days.

“Yesterday, when the Honourable IAF Chief got here to me, he informed me that it took 1.5 years to develop this touchdown strip (in Barmer),” Mr Gadkari stated in his speech on the inauguration.  “Then I informed him that we’d develop good high quality touchdown strips for you inside 15 days as an alternative of 1.5 years,” he added.

“At any time when an out-of-the-box concept is proposed, apprehensions emerge. However (we’re) glad for the help from the Defence Ministry and Air Power that has led to the profitable launch of this 3-km-long road-cum-air strip,” the minister added.

A Hercules C-130J aircraft of the IAF, carrying the 2 ministers and Chief of Defence Employees Bipin Rawat, carried out a mock emergency touchdown on the touchdown strip at Satta-Gandhav stretch on Nationwide Freeway 925.

Terming it a “new energy of New India”, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh stated, “The touchdown strip will additional cement primary infrastructure alongside the western border and strengthen nationwide safety”.

The emergency touchdown strip, he stated, can be useful not solely throughout a conflict but in addition through the occasions of pure calamities.

The minister congratulated the IAF, the Nationwide Highways Authority and the non-public sector for finishing the development of Emergency Touchdown Discipline in 19 months regardless of the Covid-19 restrictions.

“It’s a nice instance of coordination amongst a number of departments and ministries, the federal government and personal sector,” he added.

A navy transport plane and a Mi-17v5 helicopter of the IAF additionally landed on the strip, displaying its full operational readiness to behave as an auxiliary navy airbase.