The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has abandoned its plans to build a civilian greenfield airport at Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh.
AAI was earlier planning to construct an airport with a “table-top” runway at Tawang in view of the mountainous terrain of the region but the plan has been scrapped after t
he Union government felt it would be too close to the Sino-Indian border. However, it is going ahead with its move to construct another greenfield civilian airport at Itanagar, the state capital. Currently, AAI operates civil enclaves at Along, Daporizo and Zero airfields in Arunachal and also operates the Passighat airport in the state.
It is due to the Chinese attitude that India has been apprehensive about Chinese military intentions. Following Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s much-publicised visit to Arunachal Pradesh two years ago, the MoD swung into action and initiated proposals to modernise and expand five advanced landing grounds into defence airfields in the state. The MoD had concluded that the country required these from a “strategic point of view”.