Dehradun’s Jolly Grant Airport has been proposed to be renamed after BJP patriarch and former prime minister late Atal Bihari Vajpayee, by Uttarakhand Cabinet. The proposition to rename the airport was endorsed on saturday by Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat.
The state assembly session is going to commence on the 4th of December and the renaming proposal along with many others will be put fourth there for approval. If get cleared in the assembly, it will be sent to the Center for endorsement.
Here it is worth mentioning that, the former Congress government of Uttarakhand in the year 2016 had also suggested another name i.e. the eighth-century rationalist Adi Shankaracharya to rechristen of the airport and former Congress CM Harish Rawat claiming that his government had already approved the proposal and the matter stays pending for the Center’s approval.
Reacting to the matter, finance minister Prakash Pant, denied the fact of any proposal of name change is pending. He said, ‘in his period, Harish Rawat made a number of announcements yet majority of them did not materialise since no notification was issued. The cabinet has taken this choice and a proposal is to be moved to the centre for approval.’
Being an operational body of the AAI, currently the Dehradun airport got its name from the zone where it is placed and is working since 1974. Jolly Grant airport is the 36th busiest airport in India with annual passengers 1,124,937.
As an acclamation to the previous PM for his commitments to the state,Uttarakhand assembly speaker Prem Chand Aggarwal had composed a letter to Chief Minister Trivendra Rawat asking for the renaming the air terminal after Vajpayee, in August, this year, after Vajpayee’s demise.
