Arunachal Minister urges early completion of Heliport at Tawang

TAWANG: Arunachal Pradesh Tourism, Art and Culture Minister Pema Khandu today urged the executing agency to expedite early completion of the Ugyen Sangpo heliport at Tawang in compliance with the guidelines issued by the Director General of civil aviation (DGCA).

A team from the DGCA visited the heliport in July last and raised observation with regard to heliport's compliance with DGCA guidelines after the MI-172 crash on April 19, 2011.

Khandu, who is a MLA from the district today, visited the heliport to assess the status of ongoing works, an official communique informed here.

Citing the safety issues and also the difficulties being faced by the passengers in availing helicopter service from temporary helipad at Lumla, Khandu directed the Deputy Commissioner (DC) to complete the remaining works at the earliest and to request the Civil Aviation department for operating the heliport service on temporary basis till re-carpeting was done.

The issues that were raised were on safety guidelines such as preparing obstacle chart, installation of wind speed and direction detection apparatus, firefighting and emergency action plan at heliport and correction of undulating surface through re-carpeting.

The minister met the DC who updated him on actions taken by the district administration and the state civil aviation department to meet the shortcoming pointed out by the DGCA team.

The DC apprised the minister that almost all the observations have been met with except for works like re-carpeting and surfacing of the helipad.

Tawang being a favoured destination has a large flow of tourists who are keen to avail the helicopter service.

However, with the instruction to make the heliport compliant with DGCA safety guidelines, the operation of helicopter service was suspended and the helipad at Lumla has been used on temporary basis, the communique added.