State government approves Rs 640 crore for Ayodhya airport project

The BJP government in Uttar Pradesh has approved Rs 640 crore for an airport in Ayodhya, where the party has promised to build a “grand” statute of Lord Ram.

The project aims to develop an airstrip and put Ayodhya on the international tourism map, boosting the temple town’s economy and generating employment.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s cabinet on Tuesday also allowed Ayodhya’s district magistrate to release Rs 200 crore towards land acquisition on mutual agreement basis. The government had allocated Rs 200 crore for the project in its 2019-2020 budget on February 7.

The cabinet authorised Adityanath to take the final call on prospective issues related to the Ayodhya airport project.

The state government will acquire nearly 280 acres near the airstrip, which is 1.5 km long and 30 metres wide and caters to small chartered aircraft. It needs to be widened to at least 45 metres with a runway of 2.5 km for bigger scheduled flights.

After coming to power in March 2017, the Adityanath government has accorded priority to Ayodhya, which has manifested in several ways, including changing the name of Faizabad district to Ayodhya and upgrading it to a municipal corporation for the development of better civic amenities. 

Last year, the Adityanath government cleared the ambitious Lord Ram statue project in Ayodhya. At the proposed height of 221 metre, the statue would be the highest in the world and 38 metres taller than the current tallest ‘Statue of Unity’ dedicated to Sardar Patel in Gujarat.