Saturday, 1 February 2014

Tuesday, 16 April 2013

(Airport celebrates its silver jubilee- 1988- 2013)

AGATTI AIRPORT COMPLETES 25 YEARS OF SERVICE

-effgee

[The writer of this article was working at Agatti during the construction period right from the Soil testing up to landing of aircrafts at Agatti Airport. He had the privilege of availing an air journey on the beginning of flight service from Agatti to Kochi Airport at Willington Island. And he was also lucky enough to witness the development that took place in the Airport during the two and half decades as he had been working at Agatti from December 2008 to June 2012 ]

It was during 1988 Lakshadweep appeared on Air Map of India when Agatti Airport was dedicated to the people of Lakshadweep by Shri.Motilal Vorah, the then Hon’ble Minister of Civil Aviation Government of India on 16.04.1988. It was a historic day for Lakshadweep. The inaugural function was held in a colorful and festive mood. A special stage was arranged in the premises, just outside of the northern end fencing of the airport. Shri Wajahath Habeebullah, the then Administrator of Lakshadweep, Shri.H.K.Singh,Chairman & MD Vayudoot, Shri. K.Karunakaran, Shri. M.M.Jacob, Shri.P.C.Chacko and Shri.P.M.Sayeed, Member of Parliament were the dignitaries who attended the inaugural function along with Shri.Motilal Vorah, the then Hon’ble Minister of Civil Aviation.

The construction of this Airport was a time bound project which was monitored by the Prime Minister’s secretariat. The construction works were carried out by the National Building Construction Corporation (NBCC), New Delhi under the close supervision of International Airports Authority of India (IAAI), later renamed as Airports Authority of India (AAI) and the work was successfully completed within a period of 11 months.

The land for the purpose of a defence airport was initially identified during 1984 with an aim to have an airstrip at Agatti, Lakshadweep considering the geographical isolation and defence importance of the eastern most part of our country. An area of land measuring about 2 kilometers length at the southern part of the Agatti Island was owned by about 45 families. Individual plots measured about 1.6 KM and rest of the land was accreted. While celebrating the Silver Jubilee of the Airport, we must reminiscence the names of those land owners who had wholeheartedly expressed their consent to contribute land for a general cause of constructing a run way. The major part of the land from the southern end to the northern end of the airport was owned by Shri. Pandarapura Kidave Malmi, Shri. Mukriyoda Hamzakoya, Shri.Attamchetta Mohammed, Shri U.Abdulkader Master, Shri. Mariyammakada Kasmi and Kader (about 2 acres), Shri.Pappada Mohammed Malmi & others (about more than 2 acres) and Shri. Kotta Aboosala, as per survey records. None of them are alive today.

The land area starting from the small Mosque namely ‘Thekku Thangey Palli’ was full of mangroves, coconut trees and other local varieties of bushes. After completion of the soil testing and jungle clearing the site looked like a desert with white sand. About 200 labourers were engaged to work round the clock in most of the days. The construction materials were transported from Mangalore in a time bound manner by chartering 6 vessels (Motor Sailing Vessels- MSVs). The materials were brought from Mainland in a systematic way. Two vessels were made to load the materials from Mangalore port, two full loaded vessels were used to be on the way sailing towards Agatti from Mangalore and another two vessels were used to unload the materials at Agatti simultaneously. The heavy machineries like mixing plants, huge rollers, trucks etc were brought from the mainland by the construction company and put on works successfully. There was no electricity at this site but they managed machinery works by installing power generators. In a place like this remote and isolated island, the transportation of these heavy machineries/plants was really a highly risky job and this task was carried out by the NBCC. In order to minimize the communication gap they had installed radio/VHF and HF communication system in the site through which timely communications were easily made with mainland sea ports and airports.

Former Prime Minister of India Late Shri. Rajiv Gandhi who came for holidaying with family to Bangaram, Lakshadweep had inspected the progress of the construction works of Agatti Airport during the last week of December 1987. The works of run way was nearing competition at that point of time.

The air service in this airport was started with Vayudood-Avro aircraft (48 seater) in the beginning and then with NEPC Airlines (Fokker) followed by Indian Airlines Dornier. After that the Indian Airlines and the Kingfisher Airlines (66 seater ATR) were operating their flights successfully in this sector Bangalore-Kochi-Agatti throughout the year. But the Kingfisher Airlines wound up their service with effect from 24^th March 2012. Presently Air India operates flight service daily except Sunday.

The airport activities were started functioning with temporary structures during 1988. Now the civil works are in progress to facilitate passengers at arrival and departure lounge. Administration has proposed to expand the run way with an aim to facilitate bigger Aircrafts to land here as Agatti is considered as the gate way of Lakshadweep.

After completing 20 years of service of Agatti Airport then, strengthening and resurfacing works of Agatti Airport was commenced during 2010 by establishing a project office under the supervision of Shri.L.N.Tatwani from AAI,(who constructed this airport originally in 1987-88) now General Manager Engg ( Civil) at Agatti. All materials and machineries required for the works was again transported all the way from Mangalore and Beypore. This was the major task of the project. A Dubai based cargo ship M.V. Majestic Star was engaged for transporting bulk cargo of materials of about 7500 tones. It was for the first time the ship was safely berthed at Agatti Eastern side Embarkation Jetty on 13th May 2010 and discharged the cargo easily within 2 weeks with the help of movable cranes. Many materials were also transported through local Manjus (MSVs) and Administration’s cargo ships during this period. The project costing about Rupees 12 Crore for resurfacing/strengthening works of run way including the Threshold Wing bar lighting works on both sides of runway was carried out by a private firm M/S Vishal Infrastructure Ltd, Bangalore and successfully completed during the end of November 2010. The uninterrupted daily flights operation on this run way caused little bit delay in completing the strengthening works of runway during the period.

Now, according to the new master plan, the run way is to be extended towards village side (Approximately 283 M) and as well as Kalpitti side (Approximately 778 M) subject to the approval of Environment Ministry so as to enable bigger aircrafts like ATR 72-500 Series (70 seater) with maximum Take – off Weight 22,500 kgm/49,604 lb (MToW) to land in future. The arrival and departure lounges are also to be shifted to the western side as per the master plan. The new terminal building will come up on a platform constructed towards western side beach in the lagoon with modern facilities. The proposed run way will be extended towards Kalpitti Island by providing strong piling works in between the southern tip of Agatti Island and Kalpitti, as per the master plan for up gradation and modification of Agatti Airport. Presently the Agatti Airport run way has a length of 1204 Mts and width is 30 Mts only.

A lot of VVIPs and VIPs landed at this gate way of Lakshadweep, Agatti airport during the last three years. Smt Sonia Gandhi on 16-12-2008, Her Excellency President of India Smt. Pratibha Devisingh Pater who came in a special aircraft of Indian Air force landed here on 24-12-2009. Lok Sabha Speaker Smt Meera Kumar on 13.01.-2010, Shri. P.Chidambaran, Minister of Home Affairs on 03-11-2010, Shri.M.S.Gill, Minister of Sports & Youth Affairs on 19-12-2010, Shri. Mullapalli Ramachandren, Minister of State for Home Affairs on 25-01-2010,, Professor.K.V.Thomas, Shri.A.K. Antony, Minister of Defence on 24-12-2010 Minister of State for Agriculture, Consumer Affairs & Public Distribution on 28-10-2010, Shri Pawan Kumar Bansal, Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Science & Technology and Earth Science on 21^st April 2011, Shri. Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh on 29-12-2011, Parliament Estimate Committee and numerous other committees consisting of Parliament members both from Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha are among them who landed at Agatti Airport and I had the privilege of doing the photo coverage of the visit of the above guests to Lakshadweep.

The commissioning of this airport has been a boon for the budding tourism industry in Lakshadweep and the people in general. Of course, it was a right step towards the improvement of the connectivity between mainland and islands, 25 years ago. The commissioning of Agatti Airport was a milestone in the history of Lakshadweep which has helped for the development of better connectivity to these remote and geographically isolated beautiful islands.

Tuesday, 26 March 2013

"CTET" അപേക്ഷകരുടെ സംശയങ്ങളും ഉത്തരവും.

നിങ്ങളുടെ സംശയങ്ങള്‍:"-

? എങ്ങനെ അപേക്ഷിക്കാം

? ചെലാന്‍ കോപ്പി എവിടുന്ന് കിട്ടും

? ഡിഡി എടുക്കേണ്ട അഡ്രസ്സ്

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സ്റ്റെപ്പ് 1:- www.ctet.nic.in എന്ന വെബ്സൈറ്റിലോ ദ്വീപ് ഡയറിയില്‍ കൊടുത്തിരിക്കുന്ന ലിങ്കിലോ ക്ലിക്ക് ചെയ്യുക. ചിത്രത്തില്‍ PROCEED TO APPLY ONLINE എന്ന തലക്കെട്ടില്‍ ക്ലിക്ക് ചെയ്യുക.

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ദ്വീപി ഡയറി നടത്തിയ മീലാദ് ഓണ്‍ലൈന്‍ ക്വിസ്സ് വിജയികള്‍ക്കുള്ള സമ്മാന ധാനം വിവിധ ദ്വീപുകളില്‍ നിന്ന നല്‍കപ്പെട്ടു. ദ്വീപ് ഡയറിയുമായി സഹകരിച്ച എല്ലാവര്‍ക്കും പ്രത്യേകിച്ച് സമ്മാനം സ്പോണ്‍സര്‍ചെയ്തവര്‍ക്കും ദ്വീപ്ഡയറിയുടെ ആയിരമായിരം അഭിനന്ദനങ്ങള്‍. ആദ്യ സംരംഭമായത് കൊണ്ട് പോരാഴ്മകള്‍ ഉണ്ടായിട്ടുണ്ടാകാം. ദ്വീപിലെ പ്രത്യേക സാഹചര്യം കണക്കിലെടുത്ത് വായനക്കാര്‍ ക്ഷമിക്കുമെന്ന പ്രതീക്ഷ ഞങ്ങള്‍ക്കുണ്ട്. ഇനിയും ഇതുപോലെ നിങ്ങളില്‍ നിന്നുള്ള അകമഴിഞ്ഞ സഹകരണം പ്രതീക്ഷിക്കുന്നു.

-എഡിറ്റര്‍

ഒന്നാം സമ്മാനം : അല്‍ത്താഫ് ഹുസൈന്‍ ഡി.ബി.

ദാറുല്‍ ബര്‍ക്കത്ത്‌, കില്‍ത്താന്‍ ദ്വീപ്

സമ്മാനം സ്പോണ്‍സര്‍ ചെയ്തത്- Dangerous Boys, Amini