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Varanasi airport expansion: Move to boost fruit, veggie export from region
Varanasi divisional commissioner said around 350 acres of land will be purchased in the next two months for the purpose
The Uttar Pradesh government has made available ₹1,000 crore for acquiring land for the expansion of the Lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport, Varanasi.
Around 350 acres of land will be purchased in the next two months for the purpose, said divisional commissioner, Varanasi, Kaushal Raj Sharma in 12th meeting of Purvanchal Development Board, held in Varanasi, on Friday.
The Purvanchal Development Board was formed on December 28, 2018 as a consultative body under the chairmanship of the chief minister, in which eight divisions have been included.
Sharma presented details of the work being done for the development of Varanasi Division. He informed the board about the efforts being made to free Varanasi from traffic jams.
He said that the work of air street-widening and runway expansion will be done. It will promote the development of an aero bridge and cargo and thus, the vegetables and fruits in large scale will be exported to Gulf countries directly.
In the current year, more than 600 tonnes of Langra mangoes and vegetables have been exported. To further promote this, a packaging house has been built in Karakhiyaon in which grading and sorting work is being done, Sharma said.
Describing the development work done in waterway transport, he also informed about the ropeway project currently being built in Varanasi. He also enumerated developmental work done in Varanasi in the last nine years.
District magistrate S Rajalingam gave information about the paddy purchase centre and said that last year 45,000 metric tonnes were purchased against the target. This year 498 purchasing centres have been made.
Narendra Singh, vice-chairman, Purvanchal Development Board, chaired the meeting at the Circuit House, Varanasi. Members of the board, Jai Prakash Nishad, Vijay Shankar Yadav, Pardeshi Ravidas, Arvind Singh Patel, Jitendra Pandey, Vijay Vikram Singh, Rajkumar Shahi, Omprakash Goyal, Dr. KP Srivastava and Ashok Choudhary attended the meeting and expressed their views related to the development of Purvanchal.
