No fan, no A/C inside Silchar airport; "Passengers getting suffocated while officials remain missing in action," Vivek Poddar

Silchar Kumbhirgram Airport happens to be the fourth busiest airport in the entire Northeast following Guwahati, Agartala, and Imphal. Silchar Airport Authority controls and manages the operations of Silchar Airport, which comes under the administrative control of the Airports Authority of India. Although overseeing hundreds of passengers departing and arriving through it, the Silchar Kumbhirgram Airport has come under the spotlight now for being inconvenient to the passengers.

Vivek Poddar, President of the South Assam Chamber of Commerce, took to social media to express grave frustration and disappointment regarding Silchar Airport’s broken and ill-managed infrastructure. Reportedly, he and a few other co-passengers complained and made their frustration quite clear to the airport authority today while waiting for their flight.

The incident happened on Sunday afternoon when Vivek Poddar was waiting in the Silchar airport lobby for his 1:50 pm flight to Delhi. As it was a hot July afternoon, wearing double masks made it quite difficult to breathe through it. And to make things even worse, neither the fans nor the air-conditioners were working. Amid such hot and humid weather, struggling to breathe through double masks, Vivek Poddar asked the Silchar airport authority about the broken A/Cs and fans. And they replied by saying that their repair personnel wasn’t on duty at that time. Thoroughly disappointed with their response and reception, he and some other furious co-passengers started asking for the Airport authority’s in-charge to address the issue, but quite shockingly, all they said was that their in-charge wasn’t even present there. This had further cracked the patience of the already harassed passengers waiting in such a suffocating atmosphere.

While talking to Barak Bulletin, Vivek Poddar said, “I was supposed to leave for Delhi by my 1:50 pm flight. While waiting it was getting quite hot and suffocating inside as no A/C or fan seemed to have been working there at that moment. All the passengers had to wait for a long time wearing double masks, which makes waiting there an even more excruciating experience. When I raised the issue with the authority there, I was shocked to discover that there was not a single officer or I/C of the airport authority present there. After that, many of us raised some voices regarding the lack of basic infrastructure and negligence on their part. They gave us the excuse of ‘Repairing maintenance’ but the tower A/C, which is not connected to any of the centralised system, was working well, among 8 others. After creating much ruckus, they somehow brought in a mechanic and also presented some new rotational fans in front of us, which were absent until that moment. This goes to show the negligence on the part of Silchar Airport Authority.”

Vivek Poddar also said that he appealed to the Deputy Commissioner of Cachar, Keerthi Jalli regarding this issue and sought her immediate intervention. “I contacted our Deputy Commissioner regarding this issue and explained everything in detail. The government is granting funds for the development and maintenance of such institutions as the airport, which is responsible for the transportation of hundreds of people daily. But due to the gross negligence of the airport authority, we don’t get to see such basic infrastructure available for the public. The DC has assured me that she’d look into the matter and take necessary action regarding such inconvenience”, said Vivek Poddar.

He further added that due to such negligence and violation of duty done by a few officers, the masses end up blaming the government for it. “The government is indeed granting funds and other requirements for the maintenance of the airport, but if the management and the officers are not doing their duty properly, why should the government be blamed for it? They have done their part by providing funds and recruiting the officers and employees to run specific airports. Now it is the job of the airport authority to oversee the maintenance of the airport and its services. If they can’t even provide basic infrastructures like fans and A/C, why should people pay so much money to travel by air? The management and the airport authority should be held accountable for such gross public inconvenience, especially in times of Covid”, asserted Poddar.

He has also tweeted about this issue to the Union Civil Aviation Minister of India Hardeep Singh Puri after landing in Delhi. And he is hopeful that his effort to bring this issue to light will be addressed by the government and the local administration as well.