Assam's seventh airport Rupsi, situated in Kokrajhar district's Parbatjhora is set to resume operations after a hiatus of around one year. Initially, flights will travel to Kolkata via Guwahati, as per reports.
Flight operations at the domestic airport were suspended for the last year. According to reports, it will be running from November 17 onwards. Alliance Air, a wholly-owned subsidiary of AI Assets Holding Limited under the Government of India, will begin services from Rupsi Airport.
This comes after the Assam cabinet approved renaming the Rupsi airport to "Gurudev Kalicharan Brahma Airport" earlier this year. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that the state government will appeal to the Centre for the same.
Sarma said, "We will request the Central government to rename Rupsi Airport as Gurudev Kalicharan Brahma Airport. However, according to the Centre, the decision of renaming cannot only be taken by the cabinet."
The Chief Minister said that the approval of the entire assembly is also mandatory for the name change procedure. As such, the matter will be proposed during the Assam Assembly's Autumn Session. "Regarding this, the state assembly also has to give its approval. Hence, we will bring this up during the assembly session," Sarma said.
The Rupsi Airport is a domestic airport that serves both the cities of Kokrajhar and Dhubri in Assam. It is located 17 kilometres from the city centre at Rupsi. It serves as a means for people from Lower Assam to travel to major Indian cities.
Rupsi Airport was handed over to the Government of India after Koch Bihar joined the Union of India under the India-Koch Bihar Merger Agreement on August 28, 1949. The airfield, originally constructed by the British during World War II, was used by the United States Army Air Forces in the China-Burma-India Theater.
In the 1980s, Vayudoot operated services at the airport, but the airline ceased operations in 1984, leading to unsuccessful attempts by the Government of India to revive the airport through the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the North Eastern Council. The airstrip remained defunct until work to revive it began in the 2010s, led by the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and the Indian Air Force (IAF). Ultimately, commercial operations resumed under the Government's UDAN Scheme in 2021.