Source – dailypioneer.com
Pick-and-drop vehicles will be freed from parking charges at the Birsa Munda Airport in Ranchi soon, Airport Director Vinod Sharma said on Wednesday, adding that the decision was officially announced at the meeting of the Airport Advisory Committee (AAC) recently.
However, Sharma added that the vehicles will have to drop or pick passengers and leave within a stipulated period of time in order to avoid parking charges. “We do not wish to charge any money from the pick-and-drop vehicles, but we have to fix a maximum time for which the vehicles can stay on the airport premises without paying for parking as no upper limit on the free-parking-period will cause overcrowding of vehicles,” Sharma said.
The vehicles, he added, will be given three to four minutes for dropping or picking up passengers, so the free-parking period will be around five minutes. On Tuesday, an AAC meeting was presided over by Ranchi MP Sanjay Seth and attended by Rajya Sabha MP Mahesh Poddar, who has been an active member of the committee. Hatia legislator Navin Jaiswal also attended the meeting.
Besides taking the decision of relieving pick-and-drop vehicles from parking charges, the AAC also decided to use funds from Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) treasury of the airport to rehabilitate the villagers who had lost land due to construction and expansion of the airport and beautify the villages surrounding the airport.
Poddar highlighted loopholes in the parking arrangements at the Ranchi airport and said that the airport needs to fix all the anomalies in the system in order to leave a good impression on visitors. “The visitors coming from other cities and countries get the first impression of the city by seeing the arrangements at the airport. Any mismanagement at the airport leaves a bad impression,” said Poddar.
The Birsa Munda Airport is fast growing in terms of connectivity with other cities. The largest airport in Jharkhand already has 30 flights connecting Ranchi to important cities like New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore and Hyderabad. The airport also has an international bay, but is yet to get any international flights. The increasing passenger traffic in Ranchi demands for better facilities and the Airport Authority of India (AAI) is consistently working on finding new ways to enhance the travel experience of passengers, said airport officials.
Meanwhile, the airport authorities here have also floated tenders for restaurants and bar in the airport premises. Besides, several shops and showrooms have come up in the airport terminals in order to provide entertainment, refreshment and quality shopping experience to passengers here.