Murlidhar Mohol, the newly appointed Minister of State (MoS) for Civil Aviation and Cooperation, who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) from Pune, took to X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday evening and shared that he met Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and discussed three key issues concerning Pune.
Firstly, Mohol said they discussed the expansion of Pune Airport's runway for which the Airports Authority of India (AAI) will be conducting an obstacle limitation surface (OLS) survey. With the expansion of this runway, more international flights will operate from here, bringing relief to long-distance flyers who currently have to travel to Mumbai to board international flights.
The duo then discussed the shifting of a damaged Air India aircraft, currently stationed at a parking bay at Pune Airport, to Defence Force premises. This Delhi-bound Air India flight had to abort its take-off and was later cancelled after it collided with a luggage tractor trolley while taxiing for departure at Pune Airport on May 16 this year. There were around 200 passengers on board, and following the incident, they were stranded at the airport for around six hours. Subsequently, both the airline and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) launched an inquiry to determine the cause of the collision. However, the damaged aircraft is still parked at one of the parking bays at Pune Airport.
Lastly, Mohol spoke about an important issue regarding the expiration of the lease agreement of the residents in the Khadki Cantonment area. He urged that a long-term lease agreement should be made to give relief to them.
The Pune MP stated that Singh showed optimism on all these issues and will soon take a decision.
