Feb. 14: The jinx continues for Kumbhirgram airport.

Just when everything seemed to be going well for the project that is supposed to transform the 66-year-old airport into a state-of-the- art aviation facility, there are murmurs about the air force throwing a spanner in the works again.

Sources said renovation of the airport was unlikely to be completed by the target date, June 30.

Top officials of the Airports Authority of India (AAI), engaged for the past four years in implementing a package of schemes worth Rs 50 crore, are said to be dismayed by the air force's stand on the renovation of Kumbhirgram, the third busiest in the Northeast after the Guwahati, Agartala and Imphal airports.

A senior AAI official at the airport, of World War II vintage, said the air force's objections centred on the extension of the runway to facilitate smooth landing and take-off of large aircraft.

Air force officials in New Delhi and Shillong, the eastern headquarters, have been maintaining a studied silence on the AAI's proposal to dismantle the wall that straddles a part of the proposed runway route.

Union minister of state for heavy industries Sontosh Mohan Dev, who is the MP from Silchar, has time and again taken up the issue with the air force headquarters and defence minister A.K. Antony.

Dev even convened a meeting last week of the business heads of various infrastructure project agencies in Silchar. He is said to have extracted an assurance from the AAI that the runway part of the Rs 50-crore renovation project would be completed by June 30.

Among those who had attended this meeting were the AAI's local representative A.K. Dasgupta, the commander of the 36 BRTF, George P. Cherian, and the deputy chief engineer of Northeast Frontier Railway, P. Desmukh.

This is the second time in five years that the airport's runway extension project has hit a roadblock.

In 2003, the North Eastern Council (NEC), bankrolling the Rs-31 crore scheme to extend the runway from 5,857 feet to 7,505 feet, objected to the district administration' s delay in payment of Rs 1.31 crore to Goodricke Tea Group for acquiring a 31-acre land.

The land falls under Goodricke-owned Coombhirgram tea estate, contiguous to Silchar airport.

The multi-pronged scheme envisages extension of the runway from its present length of 5,857 feet by another 1,643 feet. This will take it to a length of 7,500 feet. It also includes installation of a Rs 4-crore instrumental landing system facility to chart out the glide path of an aircraft during rain and fog besides a Rs 5-crore scheme for night landing facilities.

As the Kumbhirgram airport belongs to the air force, the scheme of extension of its runway had to be approved by the ministry of defence. A memorandum of understanding was recently signed between the AAI and the air force, stipulating transfer of assets and responsibility of maintenance of the new assets to the Union ministry. The air force headquarters will hand over the entire stretch of the land of this airport on a 30-year lease to the AAI at a rate of Rs 100 a year.