Rokuo Angami
Of late the public are expressing their grievances through various newspapers about the way the passengers of Air India are being ill-treated .I as a concerned citizen feels that the Air India (Indian Airlines) has a unique history of enacting various child like drama to fool the people of Nagaland and there is no substantial improvement of the only Airport of Nagaland for the last few years.
Recently after some harassed passengers of Air India had bitterly complaint in the newspapers about the way they have been harassed on 18th June 2010, the Airport authorities are quickly replaced the old trolleys and sofa set at Dimapur Airport to give an impression that so much work is going on but we feel that the authorities are not aware of the fact that the people are running out of patience and mere interior decoration of the Airport by changing trolleys and sofa set will not make the people happy. The common man wants the following matters to be done immediately.
1) Flight at Dimapur Airport should arrive and go in time as per schedule and for that the historical runway and water logging problem should be immediately solved.
2) Foreign passengers and students should be treated with respect and they should not be dumped like bag of potatoes at Kolkata Airport when flight is cancelled for unnecessary reasons. For that the Airport officials at Dimapur must convey the grievances of Dimapur passengers on 18th June to their Kolkata Airport counterpart and bring up corrective measures.
3) Airport officials at Dimapur must explain to the people of Nagaland as to why there is flight concession for passengers traveling from Guwahati Airport to other parts of India and the same is not extended to the passengers from Dimapur Airport although both the two Airports falls under the same subsidy plan of the Ministry of Civil Aviation
4) Dimapur Airport officials should inform their counterpart at Kolkata to ask explanation from the Pilot and Air Hostess who refused to talk to the Parliament Secretary after landing at Imphal Airport on 18th June 2010. They should explain to the people of Nagaland why taking the passengers from Imphal Airport to Bangalore via Kolkata is more important than taking the passengers to Dimapur airport. They should also ask explanation from the officials posted in the Transfer and Assistance section at Kolkata Airport for smiling away the grievances of Dimapur passengers on 18th June 2010.
5) Airport Authorities should come with an open press statement about their plan of action to improve the only Airport of Nagaland which must state clearly when the tall grasses growing right inside the Dimapur Airport will be cut, when the water logging problem will be solved, when the vehicle parking space will be repaired, how the student and foreign passengers will be treated, how reliable will be the flight arrival and departure schedule etc.
6) Airport authorities at Dimapur must inform top officials in Civil Aviation Ministry, New Delhi to upgrade the Dimapur Airport to all weather flight landing facilities with all modem amenities like pre-paid taxi, book shop, handicraft shop, standard restaurant etc which should be managed by unemployed local youth.
Keeping in view the public outrage on the existing working system of Air India and Airport authorities, I on behalf of the general public request the Dimapur Airport authorities to give a press statement on their plan of action within one month time. The student communities are greatly agitated and may go on agitation anytime and in such case the general public may also support them.
Notun Bosti, Dimapur
