Air travel plays key role in connecting Northeastern region: Meghalaya CM – ET TravelWorld

Inaugurating the sixth helicopter and small aircraft summit 2024, Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said on Thursday that air travel plays an important role when it comes to connectivity in the Northeastern region. The chief minister said the state government is working aggressively to upgrade and optimise tourism, trade, health services and other sectors.

“When it comes to connectivity and other issues that the Northeastern region faces, particularly Meghalaya, air travel plays an important role in achieving the wide gamut of goals that the state is striving towards,” the chief minister said while addressing the summit.

“I would like to endorse that Shillong is the right place to hold such a summit because our terrain requires the use of small aircraft and helicopters for air travel and other socio-economic activities,” he said.

According to the chief minister, discussing the role of air connectivity should not be for the Northeastern states of India alone but look at its potential in the entire South Asian region. He said a flight from Shillong to Dhaka is less than 30 minutes, Shillong to Bangkok would be roughly 1 hour 15 minutes, and certain capitals of many countries in South East Asia are closer than our national capital.

“It takes two and a half hours to travel to Delhi, but it is shorter for us to travel from Shillong to Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Burma, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and many other locations,” he said.

“If we were to broaden our horizons to the entire Act East Zone, we would see the real potential in this entire exercise and can leverage this to our advantage to boost tourism, medical assistance, trade, logistics and other major socio-economic activities,” he said.

Speaking about the development of aviation in Meghalaya, Sangma said the government is working aggressively to upgrade and optimise tourism, trade, health services and other sectors.

“The government will handhold in the initial stages and provide continued support to bring about a convergence in all sectors to achieve the goal of an efficient and vibrant aviation ecosystem in the state and the region,” he said.

The chief minister also said there is a wide gamut of aviation services which can be leveraged from delivering medicines to logistics which can be fine-tuned and implemented to bring change and transformation at the grass-root level. He said, “I am excited about the UDAN Scheme version 5.5 for seaplanes and helicopters, as this scheme is one of the most important schemes in the Northeast.

“It would take us about 20 hours to travel by bus from Shillong to other state capitals, and now, with the implementation of the UDAN scheme, travelling will become easier and save precious time.”

Sangma congratulated the Union Minister of Civil Aviation Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu for his efforts to improve the aviation landscape in the state and the country.