PM’s address at inauguration of Deoghar Airport

Governor of Jharkhand Shri Ramesh Bais ji, Chief Minister Shri Hemant Soren ji, my colleague in the Union Cabinet Shri Jyotiraditya Scindia ji, Ministers of the Government of Jharkhand, MP Nishikant ji, other MPs and MLAs, ladies and gentlemen, Everyone feels pleased after visiting Baba Dham. Today all of us are privileged to give an impetus to the development of Jharkhand from Deoghar. With the blessings of Baba Baidyanath, today projects worth more than 16,000 crores have been either inaugurated or their foundation stones have been laid. These are going to give a lot of impetus to Jharkhand’s modern connectivity, energy, health, faith and tourism. We had dreamt of Deoghar Airport and Deoghar AIIMS for a long time. This dream is also being realized now. Friends, These projects will not only make life easier for lakhs of people of Jharkhand, many new opportunities will be created for business, trade, tourism, employment and self-employment. I congratulate and extend my best wishes to all the people of Jharkhand for all these development projects. These projects are being launched in Jharkhand, but many areas of Bihar and West Bengal, apart from Jharkhand, will also be directly benefited. In a way, these projects will also give impetus to the development of eastern India. Friends, The country has been working with this approach of development of the nation through the development of the states for the last eight years. The same spirit has been paramount in the last eight years in our endeavor to connect Jharkhand with highways, railways, airways and waterways. The 13 highway projects that have been either inaugurated or their foundation stones have been laid will strengthen Jharkhand’s connectivity with Bihar and West Bengal as well as with the rest of the country. The four-lane highway being built between Mirzachowki and Farakka will provide modern facilities to the entire Santhal Pargana. The Ranchi-Jamshedpur highway will now significantly reduce both the travel time and the cost of transport between the state’s capital and the industrial city. There will be better access to Chhattisgarh from the Palma Gumla section and transporting petroleum products to Jharkhand from Paradip Port and Haldia will also become easier and cheaper. The expansion in the rail network today has also opened avenues for new trains across the region and making rail transport faster. All these facilities will have a positive impact on the industrial development of Jharkhand. Friends, I was privileged to lay the foundation stone of Deoghar airport four years ago. Despite the difficulties in the wake of Corona, rapid progress was made on this project and today Jharkhand is getting a second airport. Deoghar airport will be able to handle about five lakh passengers every year. This will make it easier for many people to have ‘darshan’ of Baba. Friends, As Jyotiraditya ji was mentioning that our government launched the UDAN scheme with this thinking that even those wearing Hawai Chappals could enjoy air travel. Today the benefits of the efforts of the government are visible across the country. Under the UDAN scheme, more than 70 new places have been either connected with airports, heliports or water aerodromes in the last five-six years. Today, ordinary citizens are enjoying the air travel facility on more than 400 new routes. So far one crore passengers have used air travel at very low cost under the UDAN scheme. There are millions of them who saw the airport for the first time and boarded the plane for the first time. My poor and middle class brothers and sisters, who once depended on buses and railways for commuting, have now learned to wear a seat belt in airplanes. I am happy that today the flight from Deoghar to Kolkata has started. Efforts are also on to start flights for Ranchi, Patna and Delhi at the earliest. After Deoghar, work is underway on the construction of airports in Bokaro and Dumka. That is, connectivity in Jharkhand is going to be better in the near future. Friends, Along with connectivity, the central government is also emphasizing on better facilities at important places related to faith and spirituality of the country. In Baba Baidyanath Dham too, modern facilities have been expanded under the PRASAD scheme. When work is done with a holistic approach, then every section of the society and sector gets new means of income in the form of tourism. Such modern facilities in the tribal area are going to change the fate of this area. Friends, The country’s efforts towards a gas-based economy have also benefited Jharkhand greatly in the last eight years. The gas-based life and industry was considered impossible here given the kind of infrastructure that was in place in eastern India. But the Pradhan Mantri Urja Ganga Yojana is changing the old image. We are making a number of new landmark decisions to turn scarcity into opportunities. The inauguration of the Bokaro-Angul section today will expand the city gas distribution network in 11 districts of Jharkhand and Odisha. This will not only provide cheaper gas from pipes in the homes, CNG based transport, electricity, and many industries, including fertilizers, steel, food processing, cold storage etc. will also get impetus. Friends, We are following the mantra of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas and Sabka Prayas. New avenues of development, employment and self-employment are being discovered by investing in infrastructure. We have laid emphasis on aspiration for development by focusing on aspirational districts. Today many districts of Jharkhand are getting the benefit as a result of this. Our government is paying special attention to the areas considered difficult, to the tribal areas surrounded by forests and mountains. Most of the 18,000 villages which received electricity after so many decades of independence were from inaccessible areas. The share of rural, tribal and inaccessible areas was the highest even in the areas which were deprived of good roads. Work on mission mode has begun to provide gas and water connections in the inaccessible areas in the last eight years. We all have seen how earlier better health facilities were limited to big cities only. Now the modern facilities of AIIMS are available to large tribal areas of Bihar and West Bengal along with Jharkhand. All these projects are proof that when we take steps for the convenience of the people, then the wealth of the nation is created and new opportunities for development are also created. This is true development. Together we have to accelerate the pace of such development. Once again, I congratulate Jharkhand very much. I wish you all the very best. Thanks a lot!