NEW DELHI, Jun 18:  Chief Minister Pema Khandu today called on the Union Minister of State (Independent) for Civil Aviation Hardeep Singh Puri and congratulated him on assuming office. 

CM while apprising the Union Minister on the progress of land acquisition with regard to construction of Greenfield Airport at Hollongi also requested him for expeditious completion of the project through a Project Monitoring Committee to be constituted under the Chairmanship of Secretary, Civil Aviation, Government of India, with Chief Secretary of Arunachal Pradesh as one of the members. Request for early start of commercial flight services for Tezu Airport constructed by the Airports Authority of India was also placed.

Requesting for operationalization of helicopter services under Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS), Khandu said that the selected operators under UDAN are yet to start the actual operation in Arunachal and sought his intervention in this regard. He was accompanied by the state Tourism Minister Nakap Nalo.

Meanwhile, a delegation of Indian Mountain Initiative (IMI) led by President Sushil Ramola and Secretary Fantry Mein Jaswal called on the Chief Minister and congratulated him on assuming office. 

The delegation stressed on the need to incorporate issues of the Himalayan states in the Fifteenth Finance Commission (FFC) recommendations to incentivise the mountain states for enabling them to provide ecosystem services. They also made a presentation to the CM highlighting the need for interventions in areas such as disaster management, expanding green coverage, reducing erosions, enabling the mountain states to cope up with influx of tourists etc. 

Chief Minister assured all support on the part of the state government and necessary cooperation with all CMs of the eleven mountain states of the Himalayan region to deal effectively with these unique challenges. CMO