Odisha's Malkangiri, Once A Maoist Citadel, Welcomes A New Airport

Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday (9 January) inaugurated an airport in the state’s southernmost district of Malkangiri, long regarded as a Maoist stronghold.

In the first phase, nine-seater aircraft are likely to operate from the airport, before it expands into handling bigger planes in subsequent phases.

A cluster of 151 villages in Malkangiri district, famously known as Swabhiman Anchal was considered as a ‘liberated zone’ by the CPI (Maoist) extremists similar to the area in the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh.

Smooth travel to the Maoist citadel has been a major challenge given its distance from the state capital and absence of railway network. It was only in 2018 that the Odisha government constructed a bridge over the Gurupriya River, formally establishing road connectivity to the cut-off area.

The recently inaugurated airport is set to substantially slash the travel time from the state capital, Bhubaneswar, to Malkangiri, allowing the journey to be completed in merely two hours compared to 14-16 hours by road.

With Malkangiri, the number of operational airports in the state has gone up to seven. The other six are located in Bhubaneswar, Jharsuguda, Rourkela, Jeypore, Utkela in Kalahandi district and Rangeilunda in Ganjam.