New Delhi: A spell of heavy rain that swept through the north-eastern states on March 31 created havoc at the Adani group-run Guwahati airport, as flights had to be diverted elsewhere, leading to hundreds of passengers stranded at the rain-soaked terminal.
The Union government had handed over the Lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport at Guwahati to the Adani group in October 2021 on a 50-year lease. Functioning of the airport, the largest in the Northeast, is crucial for air connectivity to not just Assam’s capital but to also passengers from the adjoining states of Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh.
Passengers panicked, when a portion of roof sealing collapses at Guwahati Airport after heavy downpour. It was raining inside the airport also.#AdaniGroup had taken control (Operation , Management and development responsibilities) of #GuwahatiAirport in 2021.#RoofCollapsed pic.twitter.com/8mq7ECJiiC
Advertisement— Surya Reddy (@jsuryareddy) April 1, 2024
While some cosmetic changes were carried out at the airport since the Adani group’s takeover, the rain on March 31 led to a part of the ceiling caving at a place where passengers were getting their luggage checked. Parts of the airport were also entirely flooded.
Video clips that went viral on social media showed water raining down on several restaurants and shops in the airport, leading them to close their operations and the staff running for cover. Airport staff and passengers were seen running from the rain. “While no injuries were reported in the incident, the collapse of a portion of ceiling prompted authorities of the Adani Group-controlled airport to briefly halt operations and divert six flights to other destinations,” said India TodayNE.
A statement issued by the airport said, “Roof outlets got heavily overflowed and water instilled inside the terminal building.”
The operations, management and development of the Guwahati airport by the Adani group is as per a decision of Narendra Modi government in 2018 to privatise its operations along with five other airports for 50 years.
As per the Adani group, the company would invest in the expansion of the Guwahati and some other airports “over the next 5-10 years”. This March, industrialist Gautam Adani’s son Karan announced that the company plans to “expand” these airports by investing Rs 60,000 crores “over the next 5-10 years”. Hindustan Times had quoted the chief executive officer of Adani Airports Holdings, Arun Bansal, stating that while Rs 30,000 crore would be spent on the ‘airside’ in the next five years, and “the rest will be allocated to the ‘cityside’ in the next five to 10 years at airports in Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Mangaluru, Guwahati, Jaipur and Thiruvananthapuram.”
News outlets had reported that the heavy rain and wind also led to the fall of a big tree blocking the road leading to the airport.
The storm had also affected normal life not just in Assam on March 31 but also some other north-eastern states. In Meghalaya, over 200 people were rendered homeless by the storm due to their houses getting “badly affected” besides the strong winds uprooting many trees in that state, said the Nagaland Post.
One person was killed in Tripura due to lightening while at least 160 houses “crumbled down and large trees came crashing down” due to the storm, the report said. Several homes were swept away in Manipur too “while standing crops and livestock shelters were heavily damaged”. Sikkim too reported damage due to the rains.
Local reports also said a church in Mizoram’s Champai district collapsed due to the storm and another in Aizawl district was also affected on the day of Easter prayers.
