The Jammu and Kashmir administration is about to finish work on one of the five proposed landing strips for fighter aircraft on the Srinagar-Jammu highway.
According to an official document, the work on the 3.5-kilometre long emergency landing strip in Bijbehara area of south Kashmir’s Anantnag district is 94 percent complete. The document says that the construction of an emergency landing facility from kilometer 246.200 to kilometer 249.700 (design length 3.5 kilometer) on Srinagar-Banihal section of NH1A (New-NH44) is on in full swing and 93.8 % progress has been achieved on it.
“The majority of works have been completed and land acquisition is under process for the Air Traffic Control (ATC) building and service road,” reads the document.
In September, the five emergency landing strips were proposed for fighter jets in Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. Location of two of them has been decided between Bijbehara-Chinar Bagh and Srinagar-Banihal while three others are expected to come up along Jammu-Pathankot, Jammu-Poonch highways and in Ladakh. The strips were planned at the time of the border standoff between Indian and Chinese armies along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh. The major highway connecting Ladakh to the rest of the country passes through Kashmir.
The landing strips are expected to play an important role in rescue efforts in situations of natural calamities like floods.
The government took a cue from an inter-ministerial joint committee meeting between the Ministry of Defence and the Indian Air Force (IAF) in 2016, which discussed the feasibility of setting up emergency landing strips on highways. The IAF and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) were tasked with site survey and inspection. More than 10 strips are planned across India, one of them recently inaugurated at the Gandhav Bhakasar section on National Highway-925 in Barmer, Rajasthan.
The upcoming strip will have parking slots for four aircraft, an air traffic control (ATC) tower, and two gates at both ends of the strip.