Warangal Urban: The Telangana government will strive to regain the past glory of Warngal’s Nizam-era Mamnoor airport, said Minister for Panchayat Raj and Rural Development Errabelli Dayakar Rao on Monday. He also said that the State was willing to resume services from Mamnoor airport soon.
The Minister accompanied the Airports Authority of India officials along with District Collector Rajiv Gandhi and other legislators to the Mamnoor airport located on the outskirts of Warangal city.
As per the AAI, over 1,140 acres of land is necessary for the airport. 706 acres is already available and the government seeks to acquire 200 more acres of private land from the farmers, said Dayakar Rao, speaking to media after the inspection. According to official sources, the revenue authorities had already begun the exercise to acquire land for the development of the Mamnoor airport to make it operational. In view of this, the authorities identified 195 acres at Nakkalapally and 235 acres at Gadipelly adjacent to the airport which include both government and private land.
The Airport was built by the Seventh Nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan in the year 1930 to benefit the businesses at Sirpur Kaghaznagar for the paper industry’s convenience and the Azam Zahi mills at Warangal. During the Indo-China war, it served as a hangar for government aircrafts as Delhi airport was an easy target. Many cargo flights and Vayudooth services operated from Mamnoor.
The 1930-commissioned airfield went into oblivion in the mid-1980s but has always remained a moot point for the political parties. Currently, the airport premises are being used as an NCC Training Centre by No. 4 (A) Air Squadron for gliding sorties, skeet shooting, and aero-modeling. No commercial services are being run from this brownfield airport.