The central government is exploring the possibility of establishing an airport in or around Vadnagar. Vadnagar in Gujarat’s Mehsana district is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s hometown.
A team from the Airports Authority of India (AAI) will be visiting the Vadnagar-Visnagar region on Wednesday to conduct a pre-feasibility study for the aerial connectivity. The team, accompanied by officials of the district collectorate, will visit Gunja, Vadnagar, and Chandpur villages.
Quoting a senior government functionary, Indian Express reported, “It is under consideration of the government to develop an airport in Mehsana. Mehsana city has got congested and so various options are being mulled to develop a new airport in Mehsana.”
Local revenue department officials in Vadnagar and Visnagar have been instructed to remain present during the visit of the central team on Wednesday along with the tools for carrying out the survey.
The Mehsana Airport, originally an unused airfield, was developed through a public-private partnership between the State government and Ahmedabad Aviation and Aeronautics Ltd (AAA Ltd), a private company. Narendra Modi, who was the Chief Minister of Gujarat at that time, inaugurated the airport in the year 2007.
The airport has no passenger operations or scheduled flights and is mostly used for non-scheduled operations. As such, if one wishes to fly to Mehsana, the nearest airports are the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport (Ahmedabad Airport), which is 65 kilometres away from Mehsana or the Vadodara Airport, which is 164 kilometres away.
Should the Vadnagar airport project materialise, it would mark the most recent addition to a noteworthy series of substantial infrastructure developments that the town has witnessed since Narendra Modi occupied the state chief minister’s chair in 2001, and then moved on to become Prime Minister in 2014.
During his inaugural Lok Sabha election campaign in 2014, where he contested from both Vadodara and Varanasi, Modi frequently spoke about his gratitude for being born in Vadnagar. He highlighted the historical significance of Vadnagar, which was formerly under the rule of the Hindu Maratha Gaekwad kingdom of Baroda or Vadodara.
In 2016, Vadnagar got a new medical college, followed by the establishment of a government science college in 2020.
The year 2021 saw Prime Minister Modi inaugurating a MEMU (Mainline Electric Multiple Unit) train that operates from Gandhinagar to Varetha in Mehsana, with a halt at the Vadnagar Railway Station.
A broad gauge line connects Vadnagar now to the rest of the country, with two trains daily running up and down from Gandhinagar and Valsad.