Bhuj Airport is a domestic airport located in

Bhuj Bhuj () is a Municipality and District Headquarters of Kutch District in the state of Gujarat, India. Etymology According to legend, Kutch was ruled by the Nāga chieftains in the past. Sagai, a queen of Sheshapattana, who was married to Kin ...

in the Kutch District of the state of

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...

, India. It is located 4 km from Bhuj. It is situated at an altitude of and occupies a total area of . It is located from the Indo-Pakistan border. The airport was previously made up of two

bunker A bunker is a defensive military fortification designed to protect people and valued materials from falling bombs, artillery, or other attacks. Bunkers are almost always underground, in contrast to blockhouses which are mostly above ground. T ...

s/buildings near the

Bhuj Rudra Mata Air Force Base Bhuj Rudra Mata Air Force Base is an Indian Air Force base, which shares its runway with Bhuj Airport at the town of Bhuj in Gujarat, India. It is part of South Western Air Command. The base at Bhuj which suffered extensive damage during the ...

, with which it shares the runway. On one side of the passing road there was an

Indian Airlines Indian Airlines was a division of Air India Limited. It was based in Delhi and focused primarily on domestic routes, along with several international services to neighbouring countries in Asia. It was a division of Air India Limited after m ...

bunker. From there a coach would transport passengers across the

Indian Air Force The Indian Air Force (IAF) is the air force, air arm of the Indian Armed Forces. Its complement of personnel and aircraft assets ranks third amongst the air forces of the world. Its primary mission is to secure Indian airspace and to conduct ...

grounds to the small departures terminal.

History

The airstrip was destroyed in the

Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 The Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 was a military confrontation between India and Pakistan that occurred during the Bangladesh Liberation War in East Pakistan from 3 December 1971 until the Pakistani capitulation in Dhaka on 16 Decem ...

, in air strikes in which Pakistani bombers dropped

napalm Napalm is an incendiary mixture of a gelling agent and a volatile petrochemical (usually gasoline (petrol) or diesel fuel). The name is a portmanteau of two of the constituents of the original thickening and gelling agents: coprecipitated alu ...

bombs. The airfield was raided 35 times in 14 days with attacks by 92 bombs and 22 rockets. It was rebuilt during wartime by a group of 300 women from the nearby village of Madhapar who were given 72 hours to complete the task. Later the

Government of India The Government of India ( ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, ...

honoured these women with a cash prize of 50,000. In 1971 war the Air Force base commander was Squadron Leader Vijay Kumar Karnik. He and his 2 officers with 50 air force and 60 DSC personnel did a great job of keeping airbase operational despite sustaining very heavy Pakistani bombing.

Infrastructure

The airport has a single terminal that handles all arrivals and departures. The terminal can handle 350 passengers at a time. The airport has area on the ground floor and on the first floor. It has two boarding gates and has the capacity for up to 200 people arriving and 200 people departing. There are four check-in counters and one security counter. There is one entry gate and three x-ray baggage scanner provided by the AAI. The airport can handle aircraft up to the size of an

Airbus A320 family The Airbus A320 family is a series of narrow-body airliners developed and produced by Airbus. The A320 was launched in March 1984, first flew on 22 February 1987, and was introduced in April 1988 by Air France. The first member of the fam ...

, while the apron can accommodate two

Boeing 737 The Boeing 737 is a narrow-body aircraft produced by Boeing at its Renton Factory in Washington. Developed to supplement the Boeing 727 on short and thin routes, the twinjet retains the 707 fuselage width and six abreast seating with two u ...

- 800 aircraft at the same time. There is also a permanent helipad located at Bhuj Airport.

Renaming

In 2005, then Member of Parliament from Kutch, Pushpdan Gadhavi, as well as

Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 and is the Member of Parliament from ...

, then

Chief Minister of Gujarat The Chief Minister of Gujarat is the chief executive of the government of the Indian state of Gujarat. The governor appoints the chief minister, whose council of ministers are collectively responsible to the assembly. The chief minister's term ...

, made a request to the Ministry of Civil Aviation to rename the airport after revolutionary freedom fighter

Shyamji Krishna Varma Shyamji Krishna Varma (4 October 1857 – 30 March 1930) was an Indian revolutionary fighter, an Indian patriot, lawyer and journalist who founded the Indian Home Rule Society, India House and '' The Indian Sociologist'' in London. A graduate o ...

. Then Minister for Civil Aviation

Praful Patel Praful Manoharbhai Patel (born 17 February 1957) is an Indian Nationalist Congress Party politician, industrialist and sports administrator. He was the president of India's association football governing body the All India Football Federatio ...

turned down the request, stating that foreigners might not be able to find the airport if it was named after someone.

Airlines and destinations

Accidents and incidents

The airport was damaged in the

2001 Gujarat earthquake The 2001 Gujarat earthquake, also known as the Bhuj earthquake, occurred on 26 January, India's 52nd Republic Day, at . The epicentre was about 9 km south-southwest of the village of Chobari in Bhachau Taluka of Kutch District of Gujarat ...

and was renovated at a cost of 400 million. The renovated

terminal Terminal may refer to: Computing Hardware * Terminal (electronics), a device for joining electrical circuits together * Terminal (telecommunication), a device communicating over a line * Computer terminal, a set of primary input and output devi ...

was dedicated in 2003 by then

Deputy Prime Minister of India The deputy prime minister of India (IAST: ''Bhārat Ke Upapradhānamantri'') is the second highest ranking minister of the Union in the executive branch of the Government of India and is a senior member of the Union Council of Ministers. The off ...

, Lal Krishna Advani. The original

ATC tower Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airsp ...

was destroyed in the earthquake and an ad hoc terminal was set up for rescue operations. It was manned by three officers of the

and handled as many as 800 takeoffs and landings in a four-day window. The runway itself was damaged but was repaired within hours to allow flights to land by the afternoon of 26 January itself. Equipment was flown in from places like

Chandigarh Chandigarh () is a planned city in India. Chandigarh is bordered by the state of Punjab to the west and the south, and by the state of Haryana to the east. It constitutes the bulk of the Chandigarh Capital Region or Greater Chandigarh, which al ...

and the injured were flown out to places like

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, ( the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million As of 2021, Pune Metropolitan Region is the largest i ...

. The Air Force flew helicopters into Bhuj and

Jamnagar Jamnagar () is a city located on the western coast of India in the state of Gujarat of Saurashtra region. It is the administrative headquarters of the Jamnagar district and the fifth largest city in Gujarat. The city lies just to the south o ...

for evacuation as well as set up medical camps.

References

External links

Bhuj Airport at the Airports Authority of India
{{Airports in India Airports in Gujarat Bhuj Transport in Bhuj Airports with year of establishment missing