NEW DELHI: You could soon be boarding a seaplane from the Yamuna riverfront to Ayodhya or from Mumbai to Shirdi for a pilgrimage, if the government has its way. The shipping and waterways ministry has issued an expression of interest (EoI) for the Sagarmala Seaplane Service (SSPS) for having this service to connect several places like — Delhi’s Yamuna riverfront and Ayodhya, Tehri, Srinagar (Uttarakhand) and Chandigarh; Mumbai to Shirdi, Lonavala and Ganpatipule; Surat to Dwarka, Mandvi and Kandla; and within the archipelagos of Andaman and Nicobar and Laskhadweep.
The ministry has sought response to the ambitious project from interested operators by January 22, 2021, for forming a special purpose vehicle (SPV) with Sagarmala Development Company Limited (SDCL) to undertake joint development and operation of SSPS. It says the EOI’s purpose is to “gauge the interest of the various companies in this project.”
