Quote:Rs 45 Cr Sanctioned For 6th Airport In Odisha, Bhubaneswar-Amarda Flight Services To Start Soon

“Amarda Road airstrip is available in the list of unserved airports in UDAN Document. Under UDAN 4.2, it has been identified for development for the operation of RCS flights. The route Bhubaneswar-Amarda-Bhubaneswar has been awarded to Air Taxi for the operations,” Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya M Scindia said in a letter to Balasore MP Pratap Chandra Sarangi.

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“An amount of Rs 45 crore has been sanctioned for the development of the Amarda airstrip under the UDAN scheme. It has been informed by the Government of Odisha that development work at the airstrip will be taken up once the land is handed over by the Ministry of Defence to the State. On the readiness of the airport, the Selected Airline Operator may start RCS flight operations from/to Amarda,” he added.

Quote:Amarda Road Airstrip, also known as Rasgovindpur Airstrip (IATA: IN 0074) is a former wartime airfield located near Rasgovindpur village in Mayurbhanj district of Odisha, India.

History
The Amarda Road airstrip, as it was called in war terminology, spreads across an area of nearly 600 acres. Built in the 1940s at a cost of Rs 3 crore, it was eventually abandoned after the war. It was probably named as Amarda Road Airfield because of the nearby Amarda Road railway station. The airfield was used by No. 136 Squadron RAF,[2] No. 177 Squadron RAF[3] and No. 607 Squadron RAF. The 'Air Fighting Training Unit', formed in February 1943, was also based here.

... Aircraft of the RAF and the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) would regularly fly from this space to China via Chabua (Dibrugarh), Jorhat and Vijaynagar across the infamous hump route over Arunachal and East Tibet.

Amarda Road and other neighbouring airfields - Dhalbhumgarh, Dudhkundi, Salua, Digri, Salbani and Chakulia - formed a web of airfields created by the Allies to stop the impending Japanese advance in the east. During the war, Amarda Road was, to put it simply, a battle hub. After the war was over, most airfields, including this one, fell into disuse. Today, only the Kalaikunda airstrip, which was declared an Air Force Station in 1954, exists.

Present condition
Eight decades after the base was built, the 11,000 feet (3,400 m) concrete runway is still intact, though the buildings that once cluttered the edges are gone.

There are proposals to renovate the airstrip for future operations under UDAN scheme from 2022.