IndiGo on Saturday started a direct flight service between Delhi and the newly inaugurated airport at Deoghar in Jharkhand.
Union Minister of Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya Scindia and Minister of State for Civil Aviation General (Retd) V K Singh on Saturday virtually inaugurated the direct flight between Delhi and Deoghar.
On this route, IndiGo will deploy its A320 Neo, a 180-seater twin turbofan engine passenger aircraft, which is primarily used on domestic routes. With this new flight launch, a total number of departures from Deoghar will be 11 daily departure flights, according to an official statement released by the Ministry of Civil Aviation.
Speaking on the occasion, Jyotiraditya Scindia said, "Baba Baidya Nath Dham in Deoghar is an international religious heritage, and it gives me immense pleasure to state that my ministry has helped millions of pilgrims to visit Deoghar."
"Along with country's hard economic power, we need to dovetail country's soft power too. That's the reason why major aviation infrastructure is created at places such as Ayodhya International Airport, Kushinagar International Airport and now Deoghar Airport," the minister said.
"I would also like to congratulate IndiGo for connecting smaller cities in the country and the day is not far when Civil Aviation will become the primary source of travelling in India," he added.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated Deoghar airport on 12th July 2022. Addressing the inauguration function Prime Minister Modi announced the direct flight between Deoghar and Delhi.
Spread over 655 acres of land Deoghar Airport is the second airport in Jharkhand after Ranchi. The airport has been developed at a cost of Rs 400 crore.
We are also working on 3 more airports in Jharkhand - Bokaro, Jamshedpur and Dumka taking the total number of airports in Jharkhand to 5. We have announced 14 new routes connecting Jharkhand out of which 2 routes - Deoghar - Kolkata and Delhi - Deoghar have been started and in the coming days, we will connect Deoghar with Ranchi and Patna. Along with this, we will connect Dumka with Ranchi and Kolkata. Bokaro airport once completed will be connected with Patna and Kolkata, Scindia said.
The minister further added, "425 routes and 68 airports, heliports, and water drome have been operationalized under the UDAN scheme and more than 1 crore people, mostly first-time flyers, have benefitted from it."
"Over 1 lakh 90 thousand flights have flown under this scheme. Ministry of Civil Aviation has constructed 66 airports in the last 8 years which stood at 74 airports in the year 2014. We are planning to construct 220 new airports which include Water Dromes and Heliports in the next 5 years," he added.
( With inputs from ANI )
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