Shillong, Nov 14 (Reporter) Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma on Thursday made a strong pitch to boost air connectivity between capitals of South Asian countries with India’s northeastern states. “I would like to stress that we should not limit our perspective to the role of air connectivity within the North-Eastern States of India alone but look at its potential in the entire South Asian region,” Sangma said addressing the 6th Helicopter & Small Aircraft Summit 2024 here in Meghalaya in presence of Civil Aviation Minister K Rammohan Naidu and other senior officials from the Ministry of Civil Aviation. “A flight from Shillong to Dhaka is less than 30 minutes, Shillong to Bangkok would be roughly 1 hour 15 minutes and certain capitals of many countries in South East Asia are closer than our national Capital. It takes two and a half hours to travel to Delhi but it is shorter for us to travel from Shillong to Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Burma, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and many other locations,” the Chief Minister explained. “If we were to broaden our horizons to the entire Act East Zone, we would see the real potential in this entire exercise and can leverage this to our advantage to boost tourism, medical assistance, trade, logistics and other major socio economic activities,” the Chief Minister said. The summit organised by Pawan Hans Ltd and FICCI and supported by the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Government of India and the Government of Meghalaya is an initiative to expand the scope of the helicopter as well as small Aircraft sector across the country. About the development of aviation in Meghalaya, the Chief Minister said that the government is working aggressively to upgrade and optimise Tourism, Trade, Health Services, and other sectors and suggested stakeholders think along the lines of tourism circuits in the state to boost tourism. Sangma urged all stakeholders involved to support in their area of expertise from investors, technical experts, service providers and the like. "The Government will handhold in the initial stages and provide continued support to bring about a convergence in all sectors to achieve the goal of an efficient and vibrant aviation ecosystem in the state and the region,” he added. Speaking on the way forward, the Chief Minister, said, “There is a wide gamut of aviation services which can be leveraged from delivering medicines to logistics which can be fine-tuned and implemented to bring change and transformation at the grass-root level”...////...