Preparations are being made to make seaplane services available from the banks of the Krishna River in Vijayawada to Srisailam and Hyderabad. An aerodrome will be set up at Punnamighat, upstream of the Prakasam Barrage in Vijayawada, to facilitate seaplane landing. The necessary bases will be set up at the Srisailam Dam and Hussain Sagar in Hyderabad for seaplane landing.
The management company has already prepared the DPR required for the operation of the seaplane. Seaplane services are already scheduled to start in the Krishna River. On November 9 last year, the seaplane was formally launched at Punnamighat in Vijayawada by Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and Union Aviation Minister Rammohan Naidu.
Later, CM Chandrababu boarded a seaplane and went to the Patalganga area of Srisailam and returned to Vijayawada. He said that seaplane services will be made available soon. Officials said that the project has been delayed due to lack of clarity on where to build the seaplane base.
Representatives of De Havilland (DH) Aircraft of Canada Limited, which operates the seaplane, Gannavaram Airport and Tourism Department officials have already discussed this several times. The Krishna river bank upstream of the Prakasam Barrage in Vijayawada was inspected to decide where to set up the aerodrome.
They said that the DPR is now ready and the construction of the aerodrome will be completed soon and daily services to Srisailam and Hyderabad will be started. It currently takes at least four to five hours to travel to Srisailam and Hyderabad by road and rail. Once seaplane services are made available, one can go to Srisailam and Mallanna in just 50 minutes.
The seaplane that will operate from Vijayawada will be able to carry 14 people at a time. The ticket price for this has not yet been clarified. Officials said that although the price will be slightly higher at the start, it is likely to become available after the passenger traffic increases.
